EPILOGUE

After this manuscript was completed, rather than risk what could happen to it on appeal if any judge was outraged by publisher and author outrageous behavior, St. Martin's decided to apologize to Hickey and to offer him the confidential settlement he accepted.

There had been depositions, the taking of testimony under oath but not in the courtroom. Gary Mack, who is the archivist of the official Dallas assassination museum and archive known as and located on The Sixth Floor, is one of those who saw the Bronson films of the actual assassination after I learned about them in C.A. 78-0322. The Dallas FBI had, literally, kept knowledge of Bronson's stills and motion pictures secret from the FBI headquarters. Bronson's films are in that archive. Mack testified, as I had and as I had told Donahue, that the existing films prove that what Donahue had cooked up was an absolute impossibility.

This testimony would, of course, have been before the judges of the appeals court if St. Martins did not settle the case.

The most complete account that was published of which I know is the Baltimore Sun story that follows. The Mark Zaid referred to as co-counsel with Jim Lesar, who had been my lawyer in my FOIA lawsuits. In the story the Sun used a quotation of Zaid as a subheading.

"To think someone could have fired an AR-15 rifles on that day and that no one would have noticed, of the hundreds of people that were watching on either side of the street, just bends the imagination."

The publicity over the lawsuit was good for Hickey's good name and must certainly be that for his family.

LAWSUIT IS SETTLED

IN FAVOR OF FORMER SECRET SERVICE AGENT

Book claimed man accidentally fired bullet that killed Kennedy

"To think someone could have fired an AR-15 rifles on that day and that no one would have noticed, of the hundreds of people that were watching on either side of the street, just bends the imagination." Mark S. Zaid, attorney for former Secret Service agent

By Michael James

A retired U.S. Secret Service agent has been paid an undisclosed sum on money by the publisher of a book that claimed he fired the bullet that killed President Kennedy, an allegation that prompted the agent to sue.

The obscure book, "Mortal Error: The Shot That Killed JFK," claimed that George W. Hickey, Jr. slipped during the confusion on Nov. 22, 1963, and accidentally pulled the trigger of his high-powered AR-15 rifle. Kennedy, according to Missouri-based author Bonar Menninger, was hit in the head by the bullet.

Hickey, who lives in Abingdon, filed a libel suit in U.S. District Court in Baltimore. He has received a confidential monetary settlement in the case, according to attorneys representing Hickey and St. Martin's Press, which published the book.

"We're very satisfied with the settlement," said Mark S. Zaid, Hickey's attorney in Washington, who called the book's claim "ridiculous."

"To think that someone could have fired an AR-15 on that day and that no one would have noticed of the hundreds of people that were watching on either side of the street, just bends the imagination," Zaid said.

David N. Kaye, chief attorney for St. Martin's, said yesterday that the book "never said Mr. Hickey did anything wrong" and instead portrayed his role as "a tragic accident."

The decision to settle the case was made because "lawyers are expensive and we had no quarrel with Mr. Hickey," Kaye said.

John Sargent, chief executive officer of St. Martin's Press, recently sent a letter to Hickey saying the book "was in no way meant as a criticism of you . . . We know of no information that denigrates your dedication your dedication to the Secret Service, President John F. Kennedy or this country."

St. Martin's fended off litigation in September, when a U.S. District Court Judge dismissed the suit, ruling that Hickey had waited too long to sue. The book was published in February 1992, and Hickey sued in April 21, 1995, exceeding Maryland's one-year statute of limitations for defamation claims.

Zaid appealed the case, intending to argue that other book sellers have republished Menninger's allegations in reference works and encyclopedias. Zaid argued that the original publisher should be held liable for republication.

The settlement was reached before paperwork was filed wit the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals.

On the day of the assassination Hickey was a 40-year-old Secret Service agent assigned to Kennedy's Dallas motorcade. Menninger wrote that Hickey grabbed an AR-15 assault rifle after Lee Harvey Oswald fired at Kennedy and that Hickey's rifle discharged when the car he was riding in, behind Kennedy, changed speed.

Menninger couldn't be reached last night. Hickey, through his lawyer, refused to be interviewed. He retired in good standing from the Secret Service in 1971.

Hickey is in a nursing home. The indications are that he will remain there.

The tragedy of this tragic, ugly, inexcusable book characterizes the net result of all that has been done and will be done by those who regard themselves as Perry Masons or as Sherlock Holmes reborn.

In any responsible examination of the assassination, the initial and the minimum essential is an understanding of the official evidence that is factual and was not made up or what has been praised by calling it "theory."

Without a grasp of the actual, the real official evidence it is not possible to write responsibly about the assassination.

As that sick ego of Howard Donahue makes clear all over again.

Like the others, he considered himself more brilliant and able to see what was not there to be seen.

It was simply awful fiction that had no basis in fact or even in reasonable conjecture and it hurt the lives of many innocent people.

In addition to misleading and misinforming all of those who read the trash and believed it, all those who were influenced by the St. Martin's promotional and advertising efforts.

There is no substitute for fact and nothing is superior to truth.