OSWALD IN

NEW ORLEANS

CASE OF CONSPIRACY

WITH THE C.l.A.

Harold Weisberg

CANYON BOOKS NEW YORK CITY

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Table of Contents

Foreword	7

Prologue	17

Introduction	21

1.	The Captain an the General and the Cubans	35

2.	The Raveled Threads	55

3.	The Unsecret Secret	67

4.	Creatures of the CIA	71

5.	The "Gay Boys" and Their Jive Talking Lawyer	105

6.	The Spy Who Stayed Out in the Cold	143

7.	Assassination: "A Colloquial Expression"	163

8.	Ferrie Private, Ferrie Public	189

9.	"Checked Out and Found Clean"	207

10.	Dr. Jekyll - or Mr. Hyde - or Both?	227

11.	"President Kennedy Should Have Been Assassinated

After the Bay Or Pig"	251

12.	A Thousand Medusas	301

13.	Seek (Nothing) and Ye Shall Find (Nothing)	327

14.	Garrison' s Gallery	349

15.	Preliminary Postscript from Miami	383

16.	Conclusion	389

Shadow Or a Happy Ending - An Epilogue	395

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Copyright© 1967 by Harold Weisberg

Foreword: Copyright© 1967 by Jim Garrison

All rights reserved. No part of this book may

be reproduced without the permission of

the publisher

Published simultaneously in the United States

and Canada by Canyon Books and Book Distributing

Company, 231 East 51st Street, New York,

New York 10022

Printed in the United States of America

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FOREWORD

WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL

An identifying characteristic of the super-state is its readiness to conceal from the people facts which might make them restless in order to maintain power its officials must keep the populace believing that it is living in the best of all possible worlds.

Consequently, those in control of the governmental machinery sometimes find it necessary to re-write history as fast as it happens The truth becomes not what occurred but what they announce has occurred. Reality becomes just another government-controlled commodity.

If the official myth to be presented is particularly unbelievable it may be necessary to have honorable men study it and announce that they have found it to be true.1 This is not really as difficult as it sounds because there is nothing to which honorable men joined in an honorable cause will not stoop in the name of duty. As a general rule of thumb, the more unbeliev -

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able the story the more honorable should be the men assigned to prove its veracity.

To date, George Orwell's 1984 provided the best fictional portrait of the correction of history to suit current political needs. In Oceania, that dismal land presided over by Big Brother, the power of the government had become Gargantuan and the rights of individuals virtually had vanished. In order to maintain this balance, the Ministry of Truth continually was engaged in improving history to make it reflect government pronouncements. This was justified on the ground of 'national security,' a reasonably honest rationale inasmuch as the government could not have survived without such wholesale concealment of facts.

If, for example, Big Brother made an error which was exposed by statistics, the offensive statistics were destroyed and more satisfactory statistics were published. If books or newspapers described facts which were embarrassing to the government, they were merely re-written so as to conform with official legend. The original troublesome material was simply filled in the "memory hole," a chute leading down to the incinerator. The government's policy of vaporizing into nothingness unpleasant facts contributed in great measure to the calm of the populace of Oceania. This was helped by the fact that individuals who interfered with the public calm also tended to disappear.

"Who controls the past," said the official slogan of the super-state, "controls the future."

It now appears that, twenty years ahead of Orwell's schedule, the United States has succeeded in producing the classic model of re-writing history to conform to official needs. It is hard to assay this accomplishment when we are still so close to it, but when our contributions to civilization are added up this well may rank ahead of our invention of napalm.

When the President of our country was executed on a public street, one would have thought that there would have been a general uncomplicated desire to

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catch the assassins and to bring them all to justice. After all, there was sufficient information available information concerning the strange movements of cars behind the grassy knoll immediately prior to the assassination, the fusillade of rifle fire coming from there and the rapid departure of men on foot and by car from that sector following the shooting. Apparently, however, it was not as simple as all that. It appears that when a President's heart stops beating considerations of power and policy take over.

Instead of running down the men who killed John Kennedy, the U.S. government simply ratified his execution and moved on to more important matters. With regard to the men who actually killed him, because of their displeasure with his foreign policy, the assassination has been treated not as an offense but as a mandate for change.

The young man so promptly nominated by the Dallas Police Force was duly elected the lone assassin. He had excellent qualifications, provided they were not examined too closely. He wore the tag of a Communist defector who had spent 3 years in Russia. He had been murdered, which assured that there would be none of the time consuming problems of proof which a live defendant would have presented. And his gun and 3 empty cartridges had been placed at the 6th floor of the book depository.

In spite of these conveniences there was a slight problem. The overwhelming weight of legitimate evidence clearly indicated that he could not possibly have fired a shot at the President.

There was, to begin with, the fact that the rifle originally brought down from the book depository at 1:05 p.m., and briefly exhibited as the assassin's rifle, had -- unlike Lee Oswald's rifle no telescopic sight. There was the fact that the Marine Corps shooting records showed that Oswald could not hit the side of a barn. There was the tense fact that the nitrate test indicated that Oswald had not fired a rifle of any kind. There

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was the fact that the ancient Italian rifle, which Oswald was supposed to have used, could not conceivably have accomplished the ballistic miracle with which it was credited -- particularly causing a single bullet to inflict seven different wounds, including bone destruction, in two different men. There was the fact that the President was hit from several different directions and that his fatal wound quite obviously was received from his right front, in the area of the grassy knoll.

To make matters worse, there were probably more witnesses to President Kennedy's murder than to any other in history and the great majority of them were very conscious of the fact that most of the shots came from in front of the President. There was also the embarrassing evidence that Lee Oswald had been an employee of the Central Intelligence Agency and had acquired the stigma of a Communist defector while in the service of the United States and as the result of instructions given him by the United States government. Most of the embarrassing evidence was simply buried at the outset in a swift funeral devoid of ceremony.

The autopsy photographs and X-rays, for example, which would have revealed that the President was struck from a number of directions,2 were whisked away and have been kept hidden ever since. By now there has been time to construct new autopsy photographs and X-rays which more closely harmonize with the official myth than did the original ones.

Hundreds of significant government files and memoranda have been laid away in vaults where they cannot be seen. Among the hidden Central Intelligence Agency files alone are to be found such titles as:

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"Oswald's Access to Information about the U-2," "Reproduction of Central Intelligence Agency Official Dossier on Oswald" and "Information on Jack Ruby and Associates." Inasmuch as we have been assured by honorable men that neither Oswald nor Ruby had any connection with the Central Intelligence Agency it probably would be unpatriotic to speculate on what these secret files contain.

As bad luck would have it, a rash of conflagrations swept away other vital evidence in the government's custody. The only notes known to be taken during the long 12-hour interview of Lee Oswald after the assassination appear to have been burned. Notes taken by a federal agent who interviewed Oswald before the assassination also went up in flames. A secret Central Intelligence Agency memo concerning Oswald, written prior to the assassination, went up in smoke while being Thermofaxed. This phenomenal instance of spontaneous combustion occurred in Washington the day following the assassination. The autopsy notes describing the President's wounds were cremated in his fireplace by the attending Navy pathologist.

This is not to say that the government has not shown concern for the people's right to know. For those citizens who are curious about how and why their President was killed, the Ministry of Truth has made available the dental charts of Jack Ruby, photographs of Russian scenery, grammar school records of Oswald and Ruby, a careful analysis of Oswald's pubic hairs, irrelevant letters, irrelevant telegrams, picture postcards showing bullfights, a copy of the proceedings in an unrelated divorce case, a list of traffic citations received by Jack Ruby, and an excellent photograph of an unidentified man.

For those whose curiosity about the assassination may not have been satisfied with this frank display of evidence, it has been announced that even the secret files will be made available. There will, however, be a slight delay of 75 years before they can be examined.

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This farsighted provision not only assures a long period of national tranquility with regard to the assassination, but also substantially reduces the danger of the involved government officials being lynched.

Of course, there is no real guarantee that, even if you are very patient, you will actually get to examine these files in 75 years. New concerns by the government with regard to national security may require an additional 75 years delay, and it even might come to pass that one day it will be announced from Washington that actually no assassination ever occurred. In time, it can be explained that John Kennedy really never existed at all and that Dwight Eisenhower was followed by Grover Cleveland or Calvin Coolidge, all depending on which words best suit the government's purpose at the time. Any of these announcements would be every bit as accurate as the official myth that Lee Harvey Oswald, the lone assassin, killed President Kennedy.

In the super-state, it really does not matter at all what actually happened. Truth is what the government chooses to tell you. Justice is what it wants to happen.

In Dealey Plaza reality destroyed illusion, the illusion that we were living in the best of all possible worlds. The fairy tale of the lone assassin represents an effort to resurrect the illusion, to legitimize it by proclamation and to impose it by muscle.

In the interest of tranquility the decision has been made somewhere that it is better for you not to know what really happened. It is better for you not to know that at midday on November 22nd there were many men who, in many places, were glancing at their watches. It is better for you to believe that the successive murders of the President of the United States, Officer Tippit and Lee Oswald were simply three meaningless incidents which happened to occur one weekend in Dallas.

Above all, it has been decided that you are not to know of Lee Oswald's relationship with the Central

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Intelligence Agency. Nor are you to know that a number of the men actually involved in the assassination had been employees of the Central Intelligence Agency. You are not to know about those matters because of something called "national security."

When national security is used as the excuse for concealing essential facts surrounding a disaster, it usually refers to the security of the men who allowed the disaster to occur. Actually, the greater threat to national security is the cynical concealment of such facts from the people.

Behind the facade of earnest inquiry into the assassination is a thought control project in the best traditions of 1984. Because of their role in the Establishment and their failure to conduct any effective inquiry, major news agencies have a vested interest in maintaining public ignorance. They look away from the widespread evidence that something is wrong, just as the members of the Warren Commission looked away from the autopsy photographs and X-rays of the murdered President.3 Tranquility, the time-honored message reads, is better than knowledge.

In the authoritarian state, it is regarded as a self -evident truth that the control of history is an inalienable right of government. All words are created free and equal.

If it is proclaimed in Washington tomorrow that the moon is made of Limburger cheese, a horde of honorable men can be produced to attest to that fact. If it is proclaimed that an elephant can hang from a cliff with its tail tied to a daisy, a phalanx of experts will appear to confirm it. Anyone rash enough to question

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these official verities can expect to be exposed as a villain or a fool. The name of the game is not truth -- it is power.

The Ministry of Truth has announced that the assassination of John Kennedy was investigated exhaustively, that no evidence of a conspiracy was found and that the matter should be considered closed.

The greatest lies are told in the name of truth. The greatest crimes are committed in the name of justice.

The American people have suffered two tragedies. In addition to the assassination of the President by dishonorable men, our national integrity is now being assassinated by honorable men. It does not matter what the rationale is -- whether to calm the public or to protect our image -- the fact remains that the truth is being concealed.

The United States Constitution, assuming that it has not accidentally been burned to a crisp, does not give anyone the power to re-write history. The fact that this has happened should be evidence enough that it is far later than any of us have dreamed.

The question now is whether we have the courage to come face to face with ourselves and admit that something is wrong, whether we have the will to insist on an end to deception and concealment with regard to the execution of John Kennedy -- or whether we will let the official fairy tale be told and re-told until the truth itself fades into a vagrant rumor and finally dies forever.

If we will not fight for the truth now -- when our President has been shot down in the streets and his murders remain untouched by justice -- it is not likely that we will ever have another chance.

JIM GARRISON

New Orleans, Louisiana

September 1, 1967

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PROLOGUE

"The scenario guiding New Orleans District Attorney, Jim Garrison, in his investigation of President Kennedy's assassination can be glimpsed in any bookstore"; the Washington Post told its half-million readers the morning of March 3, 1967.

"The investigation is Garrison's but the script apparently started with Harold Weisberg . . . former Senate investigator and author of Whitewash . . . the story continued.

George Lardner Jr., who I quote on several occasions in this book, wrote this article. Prior to his first trip to New Orleans, I had "briefed" his national-desk editor. On the way down, Lardner had read Whitewash: The Report on the Warren Report. He phoned me on his return, prior to writing this account. It continues:

"Weisberg contends that Lee Harvey Oswald was not the real assassin that day in Dallas. So does Garrison.

"Weisberg contends that Oswald didn't kill Dallas police officer J. D. Tippit either . . . So does Garrison . . . the District Attorney labeled Oswald a 'decoy, a fall guy, and a victim.' Weisberg says he said as much a year ago (Whitewash 138).

"Weisberg also charges that the assassination was also deeply wound up with the plotting of anti-Castro Cuban exiles anxious to kill Fidel Castro, but also angry at Kennedy for the failure of the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion. Garrison is taking the same tack . . . Weisberg contends that a 'False Oswald' (Whitewash 137-54) was involved . . . Garrison . . . is looking for a False Oswald' . . .

"Weisberg had a hard time getting Whitewash printed. He sent it to 63 U.S. publishers, finally putting it out . . . at his own expense, calling it 'The Book That Couldn't Be Printed' . . . publishers were afraid

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to risk government wrath . . ."

Two months later, in a May 9 dispatch "from our own correspondent" in Washington, the august and respected Times of London ran this story under the headline, "Mystery of Kennedy Inquiry Cleared Up":

MYSTERY OF KENNEDY

INQUIRY CLEARED UP

From Our Own Correspondent -- Washington, May 9

One mystery of the rather mystifying investigation of the Kennedy assassination now being conducted by Mr. Jim Garrison, the Attorney General of New Orleans has been cleared up. The source of much of his information is Mr. Harold Weisberg, the author of Whitewash: Report on the Warren Commission.

Mr. Weisberg, who was one of the first to question the conclusions of the Warren Commission, returned to his home in Maryland today after assisting Mr. Garrison and his staff. It was not his first visit to New Orleans, be was at Mr. Garrison's side when the investigation was announced.

His book was not well received by the critics, and indeed was privately printed after it had been rejected by a number of publishers in New York and London. It is rather shrill in tone, but no one has questioned his honesty.

He has subsequently written two more books. Whitewash: F.B.I. Secret Service Cover-up, and CIA Whitewash: Oswald in New Orleans.

It was these two books, with supporting documents, which were made available to Mr. Garrison.

The honorable British paper gave me more credit than is due.

When the Garrison investigation was stil1 secret, I planned this book to include only what I had dug out of the government's deepest recesses. After the story broke and became first a national sensation and then a press whipping boy, I decided to weave into it as I wrote part of what became public. The purpose was to give the reader the most complete account possible.

It is in deference to my wishes, my strong belief that the essential in a democratic society is information not polish, that Parallax has agreed to bring this book

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out without the attentions it should have. For this I acknowledge regret, gratitude and indebtedness.

Harold Weisberg

Hyattstown , Md.

July 2, 1967

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INTRODUCTION

David W. Ferrie, described by New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison as "one of history's most important individuals," is now dead. His death is and will remain a mystery even with scientific determination of cause. Ferrie died on February 22, 1967, just as he was about to be arrested for the second time in connection with the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. That he had been arrested in this connection on November 25, 1963, by the New Orleans District Attorney was known to the President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy but is totally suppressed from its 900-page Report as is any reference to Ferrie's name.

The day of Ferrie's murder-suicide-death from natural causes -- all versions find and will find adherents -- Garrison admitted he had delayed arresting Ferrie in order to continue his investigation. He and the world may now regret it, although impartial hindsight confirms his judgment. Ferrie's death, to me at least, was no surprise. Whatever its cause -- and I have no reason to dispute the coroner's verdict of "natural causes" -- I feared it.

On New Year's Day 1967, a man who must, for the moment, remain anonymous, wrote me a letter. This is a day on which most Americans do not work. The letter was a work letter, not pleasantries. It came from a small town in Texas where I have a good friend, Penn Jones, Jr., and had been preceded by an elliptical telephone call from my friend informing me that there was in progress an official -- but not federal -- investigation of one aspect of the assassination of President Kennedy. Both Penn and I were, of course, excited at the prospect of an official action because both of us are convinced that the Report of the President's Commission is a whitewash.

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Penn published his own book saying this on the presses of his own weekly newspaper, the Midlothian Mirror with a grand circulation of 765. His book is entitled Forgive My Grief. Penn is an expert on the mysterious deaths of people sometimes closely, sometimes seemingly only indirectly, connected with opposition to the government's account of the assassination in what we each call "a strange upsetting of the actuarial tables." I have written and published my own books, Whitewash: The Report on the Warren Report and Whitewash ll: The FBI-Secret Service Coverup.

I think Penn and his wife Louise are two of the bravest people I have ever met, doing and saying what they are, in Texas, only 26 miles from Dallas. The man who wrote me must also have considerable courage.

"On page 19 of Whitewash 1l," he began, "you refer to Marina Oswald's being asked whether she knew a 'Mr. Farry .' As I understand it from the preceding pages, this information was obtained from the report of Secret Service Agent Charles Kunkel and this question was actually asked on the night of November 24, 1963."

November 22,1963, is the date of the assassination of President Kennedy. November 24 is the date of the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald. Marina's husband had already been shot when the Secret Service spirited her out of Dallas. They tried to hide it from her. They took her to the bedside of her then-dead husband only when the widow and her mother-in-law, Mrs. Marguerite Oswald, "insisted," in the words of the Secret Service's own account of the incident.

Before her husband's body was cold that Sunday, November 24,1963, without benefit of advice or counsel, Marina was secretly returned to the Arlington, Texas, hiding place in which she was kept for three months of captivity called "protective custody" and promptly subjected to an intensive grilling. Let's face

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it: she was sweated and threatened. The Secret Service told her that if she wanted to stay in this country (from which she was subject to immediate deportation to her native Russia where she could expect no welcome) she had better "cooperate." Her "cooperation" began with an immediate, lengthy, and taxing interrogation that was tape-recorded. The English transcript of it, which I have and will print in Whitewash III: The Archive takes up 45 pages. These 45 typed pages do not reflect the length of the interrogation. Questions were put in English and translated into Russian. Her answers were then translated, sometimes interpreted, from Russian into English.

Toward the end, Marina, just bereaved, torn by emotional turmoil and the recognition of her frightening position, screwed up enough courage to complain of fatigue. The transcript at this point reads:

"Agent. We are coming to the end. We will finish in a few minutes."

A few more questions were asked and answered and the session, which I regard as a subhuman imposition on the distraught and bewildered Marina, had apparently ended. At this point in the transcript, attributed to no one, these words appear:

Due to further information having been phoned from Washington to Inspector Kelley, we have a few more questions to be asked Mrs Oswald. We will continue.

The questions then asked of Marina after her complaint, after this long abuse of her fresh widowhood, were: Did she know of a Leonard Reisman at Tulane University, the Committee for Peaceful Alternatives, or a "Mr. Farry"? She did not.

My correspondent pointed out that there is no "Farry" listed in any of the indices of the Commission materia1s, "and almost certainly they were referring to Mr. (David W.) Ferrie . . . who was not called as a witness although his implication in the affair was

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obviously known to the Warren Commission . . . (Ferrie) was arrested in New Orleans on November 25, 1963 and held as a suspect as Oswald's accomplice . . ."

This tape recording was transcribed by those unfamiliar with the names and in great haste. There are other errors where the typed word is guessed at from the sound. For example, attached to the transcript in the Commission's files is a memorandum of December 1, 1963. In it Inspector Kelley informs Special Agent in charge of the White House detail Robert Inman Bouck of several mistakes: Paine was misspelled "Payne" and coworker appeared "coal worker." It is likely that Farry was "Ferrie."

So my correspondent was perplexed. He wrote,

The question which is in my mind is: how did anyone in Washington know about Ferrie as soon as the 24th since Ferrie was not arrested until the 25th?

At first he insisted I had made a mistake. Not until I read him the exact transcript and the pertinent Secret Service reports in subsequent telephone conversations did I convince him that I had made no error.

Then he told me he was working as an investigator for the New Orleans District Attorney, Jim Garrison, who was investigating my own story of "The False Oswald" told in separate chapters of my two books, as it relates to what happened in New Orleans. District Attorney, Garrison was conducting his investigation in secret and without help from the various police agencies.

Thereafter I helped him in whatever ways I could. I made all of my own investigation available to him, took him to the source of official information, showed him how it was arranged and how to use it.

We were both surprised when it was publicly revealed the afternoon of Friday, February 18,1967; that the New Orleans investigation was in progress. I was driving to another appointment in suburban Washing-

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ton in the midst of a snowstorm when I heard it on a radio newscast. The owner of a furniture store where I could park allowed me to use his phone, but I did not reach this private investigator. When finally I could, he had learned only that the District Attorney had had nothing to do with this premature release. The investigator concluded, as I did, that the release, whether or not so designed, would seriously interfere with the investigation. Since then District Attorney Garrison has confirmed this.

To the degree permitted by the snow parking regulations, the generosity of the furniture store owner and the tolerance of those with whom my wife and I dined that evening, I phoned all of the newspaper reporters and radio and television stations whose kindnesses had been helpful in bringing the dissident opinion on the Warren Report to the public attention to "background" them on what I knew. In each case I insisted all mention of Ferrie's name had to he off the record, specifying this was not only his legal right that must be upheld and respected but the minimum requirement of a successful investigation; otherwise I said District Attorney Garrison would wind up with no witnesses. My apprehension about Ferrie was so strong by Monday, February 20, that I had Xeroxed copies made of all the testimony and printed exhibit pertinent to him so that I could answer questions by telephone without having to fumble with all of the Commission's heavy and awkward volumes.

When Ferrie's death became public knowledge, I was broadcasting by telephone to the Phil Donahue program on the CBS station in Dayton, Ohio, WHIO. Phil read the bulletin on the air. Before I furnished what little comment I thought appropriate, my telephone was already ringing with those reporters who recalled my misgivings and concern.

Thus, in three days, I am connected with this investigation: My published work contains a great deal

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of the story, my unpublished discoveries carry this forward, and I was able to direct the investigation where it could locate more of the suppressed and ignored data collected by the government but not used in its official Report.

To date, I have had no contact with the District Attorney himself and I do not seek any. I have not asked what he knows, and I do not believe that what is not publicly available should be used prior to any trial that may result from his work. Nothing of what follows is not available to any qualified researcher or investigator. I just happen to be the one who did the work and who obtained these hitherto unpublished documents.

It had been my plan to print these once-secret and entirely spurned documents in Whitewash I11: The Archive. That book is already delayed by my continuing and I believe fruitful inquiries into other aspects of the assassination and its official Report. I am happy to abandon this facet to the New Orleans District Attorney with the sincere hope that he develops a case he can take to court. What is urgently needed is an open court proceeding, where for the first time two sides can be presented, where our society can begin to function again, and above all, where traditional safeguards of the law will apply.

I believe too that it is important for people to know how the federal police operate and how, in particular, they did when their President was murdered. I am here bringing these documents, most of which had been intended for inclusion in Whitewash 111 to public attention.

The speed with which I seek to bring to public attention what now may properly be said and revealed of what is involved in the New Orleans investigation should lead to no misunderstanding of my conviction. This is but a part of what must still be done to disclose the entire truth of that awful day in our history and those shameful ones that have followed. A President

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has been killed and consigned to history, as I have said elsewhere, with the dubious epitaph of a fraudulent inquest. The entire truth must be told, and it must be told publicly and by the government.

What has come to be called "the crisis of credibility" in its broad sense is really the integrity of government and the reason citizens have to believe or disbelieve its word. Our government has conducted a vast investigation, issued an enormous Report and seeks demands -- that it be believed. The size of the investigation is no measure of its integrity, nor is it a sign of either pertinence or thoroughness.

An overwhelming percentage of the Report is devoted to a biography of Oswald that is not dependable, not nonpartisan and not pertinent if, as I believe the Commission's best evidence proves, he was not an assassin.

Hence, I welcome the first public statement by any public official of whatever stature, made by New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison on Washington's Birthday 1967, in which he as a lawyer and especially a prosecuting lawyer concurs in my previously solitary conclusion that Oswald killed no one in Dallas on November 22, 1963.

A further large part of the investigation and the Report is devoted to an exposition of an impossibility, that there was but a single assassin, Oswald. The Commission's best evidence, entirely misrepresented, is that under the conditions of this assassination and with the alleged assassination weapon, no single man in the world could have committed it.

Thus it can be seen that size is no substitute for relevance or truth. If the FBI alone conducted investigations that yielded more than 15,000 reports and these investigations and reports avoid what must be inquired into, their number means nothing and is but a measure of the willingness of the government to go to

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