Obviously, a memo like this turns an investigation (a search for truth with no pre-established conclusions) into an inquisition (transmitting only that information consistent with a pre-conceived conclusion which itself may be inconsistent with the facts).
But why an inquisition instead of an investigation? As acting Attorney General, why would Katzenbach want to cut off speculation about Oswald’s motivation? Wouldn’t Oswald’s potential involvement in a conspiracy be something that the American people would want to know about, and the discovery of this involvement, if in fact it was the case, the duty of the American government to discover? Let’s face it, if there were people involved in a conspiracy, then they would have been just as guilty of the crime of murder as Oswald was (if in fact he was), and to cut off speculation about a conspiracy would be to let the murderers of President Kennedy go free!
When you analyze it, you realize that Katzenbach could not possibly know on November 25, only three days after the assassination, when virtually no investigation to speak of had been completed, that a conspiracy was nonexistent! So, right out-of-the-box the searchers for truth were improperly put on a short leash by the people in charge (Katzenbach, most likely acting under orders from his boss, President Johnson), and the wheels of the great machinery of deception began their inexorable motion forward.
Given the serious gaps in the investigatory skills of the Warren Commission and the FBI noted by the HSCA Report, gaps motivated by the memo, memos like his memo, and the inevitable subterranean conversations much like his memo, assassination researchers over the last decades have stepped into the void and uncovered literally thousands of pages of evidence contradicting the primary conclusions of the Warren Commission. With reference to the element that only three shots were fired, the evidence to the contrary points to these following conclusions:
The evidence indicates that only two empty shells were discovered at the Texas School Book Depository, not three; with only two empty shells, Oswald could not have fired three shots, rendering any controversy ostensibly raised by the following points moot.
The available audio evidence (and analysis) provides no support for the conclusion that exactly 3 bullets were fired.
There was evidence of more bullets found than could be accounted for by only three separate shots.
There was evidence of more bullets fired than those ostensibly fired from the Texas School Book Depository.
There was evidence of multiple shots to the head of President Kennedy, not just one shot.
There was evidence of multiple shots to Governor Connally, not just one shot.
As the FBI reported, the President was shot in the back, not in the neck, with a bullet that did not pass through President Kennedy’s body, and therefore there were at least three separate hits to President Kennedy and Governor Connally, with at least one missed shot making at least four bullets fired.
Let us cover these in order, and as we do so, discover their impact on the confidence level of our element.
Reason 1: The evidence indicates that only two empty shells were discovered at the Texas School Book Depository, not three; with only two empty shells, Oswald could not have fired three shots, rendering any controversy ostensibly raised by the following points moot.
One of the more intriguing observations noted by the Kennedy assassination research community over the years is that the primary assumption of the Warren Commission that three empty shells were found at the Texas School Book Depository turns out to have an overwhelming (and ultimately dispositive) amount of contradictory evidence. But more than that, when you follow the threads emanating from this evidence, you find that you will be lead to some well-hidden skeletons in the closet via a route of twist and turns the most hack Hollywood screenwriter would have been embarrassed to pen.
Unintentional twist and turns, of course, functionally identical to what is referred to in Hollywood as a continuity error. 12
What is a continuity error? It is an error in a film whose fundamental flaw leads to the suspension of the suspension of disbelief we normally have when watching a movie. So if you ever “got into” a film, the continuity error takes you right out of it.
A very simple example of a continuity error is the following: man and woman are having dinner in restaurant. Alternating close-ups of both. Shot 1: Man wearing tie, asks woman a question. Shot 2: woman answers question. Shot 3: man not wearing tie, asks a follow-up question. Shot 4: woman answers second question. Shot 5: man wearing tie, appears satisfied with answer.
Can you make up a story to explain how the tie disappeared in the third shot? Sure you can! “Between the questions and the answers, the man with the tie took it off really fast, then he put it back on.” And in the history of the cinema, many fans who could not stand the thought of their star directors making such elemental mistakes would invent such stories.
But at the end of the day, we all know that the story is false, just as ridiculous as the error, and the bottom line is that the continuity error is just what it appears to be: an indication that you are just watching a movie, and not a particularly well-made one at that.
As we go through the testimony, you will see more than one example of the Warren Commission version of the continuity error. And as you find them, you may find yourself asking the question “am I viewing reality, or am I viewing a projection of what is claimed to be reality?”
We can start with the witness reports, beginning with the testimony of Howard Brennan, who in another context was one of the Commission’s star witnesses; it is worth noting that this star witness nonetheless provided a statement which contradicted one of the Commission’s central propositions. According to Brennan, only two shots were fired, not three (3 H 154): 13
Confirmation of the Brennan statement comes from Bonnie Ray Williams, who was located directly below the sixth floor at the southeast corner of the Texas School Book Depository, and obviously was in a position to hear shots from the floor immediately above. The statement below is from Williams’ affidavit of November 22 (Ce 2003; 24 H 229): 14
So, in that statement, Williams corroborated the report by Brennan. The FBI gave their report of their interview with him, which confirmed the statement (“FBI Gemberling Report of 30 Nov 1963 re: Oswald,” CD 5, p. 330): 15
But, as we will see over and over in this book, early testimony confirming a conspiracy hypothesis is later replaced with testimony that confirms the lone assassin hypothesis, whether it is a back wound that becomes a neck wound, or a shot which lodges in the body that becomes a shot which passes through a body, or a shot at the base of the head which becomes a shot to the top of the head, or a shot from the front which becomes a shot from the back, etc. etc. This is no different: later testimony by Williams provides a shift from two shots to three shots (3 H 179): 16
Readers familiar with the case will notice a problem with the next to the last sentence in that paragraph of testimony, which we will cover after focusing on another paragraph providing more significant details regarding the shots (3 H 175): 17
One detail immediately jumps out. Williams changed his story to say that three shots were fired, but he could only positively state that two of them were fired from the Depository — yet to confirm the element of the Warren Commission, all three shots had to be fired from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository, where Oswald was said to have been located at the time of the shooting. Now, if you read this testimony closely, you can see that the testimony is highly unlikely to support that conclusion! Think about it: he didn’t “pay any attention to” the first shot, but the second and third shots were so loud and so powerful that they “shook the building” to the extent that cement fell on Williams’ head. Could a building-shaking, cement-crumbling, head-dusting shot be something that Williams would not pay “attention to,” as he indicated in his testimony related to the first shot?
If the facts of the preceding do not smell like one or more continuity errors to you, another significant problem with t
he story should trigger the alarm. The story has to conform with the timing of the shots that the Warren Commission told us had to take place based on test firing with rifle. According to the Commission, 2.3 seconds had to elapse between shots (WR 97): 18
If this test data is valid, we would expect the following pattern to be heard by Williams, with a 2.3 second interval designated by the ellipses:
BANG! . . . . . . . BANG! . . . . . . . BANG!
But the Williams testimony (“There was two real quick”) indicates that the shots were more like the following pattern:
bang! . . . . . . . BANG! . BANG!
The timing of the second and third shots is an important issue, and numerous witnesses heard the same pattern by Williams, indicating that the distance in time between shots was extremely brief, certainly much less than 2.3 seconds. So, if Williams actually did hear that pattern above his head, the shots in all likelihood were not — and indeed, could not have been — fired from the Mannlicher-Carcano said to have been in the possession of Oswald.
Another continuity error? Most definitely!!
This testimony, by both Brennan and Williams, with its several inconsistencies, indicates that witness testimony cannot always be relied on. Luckily, there are other ways to discover the truth, which hopefully will take us out of the world of continuity errors and into the world of the reality we expect to find.
One way, and perhaps the best way, is to follow the receipt trail left by the shells which were discovered on the sixth floor. At every step of the way, for the most part, the passing of the shells was recorded on paper. When we look at that paper trail, we make some interesting discoveries that tell us, ultimately, everything we need to know.
Some foreshadowing of what is to come was indicated by CE 3145, which tells us that after the shells were discovered, Lieutenant J. C. (“Carl”) Day, who had possession of the shells, was driven to City Hall by FBI Special Agent Bardwell Odum, not by a member of the Dallas Police Department (26 H 830): 19
When Day arrived at City Hall, he completed the earliest known document logging the discovery of this evidence (a Crime Scene Search [CSS] form from the Dallas Identification Bureau written by Lieutenant Day dated November 22, 1963, submitted between 1:30 pm and 2:15 pm CST, within two hours of the assassination). This document, which at first glance appears innocuous enough, turns out to be one of the most critical documents Kennedy assassination research has ever unearthed, a document whose first known appearance (to this author) was in the book Searching The Shadows by Steven Airhart, published in 1993 (this document can also be found in the Dallas Municipal Archives, Box 9, Folder 4, Item 31). 20 Like many of the documents in the Kennedy case, the primary significance of this document is really best seen in the context of other documents (which we are subsequently to examine), and when we do examine those documents, we find that this CSS form can truly be said to be the Rosetta Stone of the Kennedy assassination:
The first important detail of the CSS form immediately jumps out at us: two, not three shells, were submitted to the Identification Bureau, the submitting officers being Lieutenant Day (of the Identification Bureau) and Dallas police photographer Robert Studebaker:
Did I say that the shells were submitted to the Identification Bureau? Well, the letterhead of the document so indicates, and that indeed was the procedural requirement, but take a closer look at the section titled “Signature of Person Receiving Specimen”, which provides us a second key detail:
The signature reads as follows: “Charles T. Brown, Jr. Spec. Agent, FBI, Dallas”. Well below that in a separate place at the bottom of the document, almost as an afterthought, is additional writing by Lieutenant Day: “Vince Drain also present — actually took possession of all evidence. Day”.
Both Brown and Drain were associated with the Dallas FBI office, so what this means is that these empty shells were not turned over to the Identification Bureau as the letterhead would indicate, but rather, to the FBI. Odum of the FBI drove Day to the ID Bureau, Brown of the FBI took possession from Day at the ID Bureau, and so we have two mutually confirming key pieces of documentary evidence that tell us right at the beginning the FBI is heavily involved with the possession of the ballistic evidence.
Now, many readers will not find this odd, but it is. At this early stage of the game —“1:30 to 2:15” pm (Central Standard Time, or CST), according to the “Time” field at the top of the memo, the third key detail . . .
. . . the transfer of possession of ballistic evidence to the FBI would have been an extraordinary anomaly. Why? Because the Dallas Police Department alone had jurisdiction over the case, and the FBI had none, as shown by this exchange between FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and Warren Commission Chairman Earl Warren on May 14, 1964 (5 H 115): 21
Dallas Police Chief Jesse Curry discussed this aspect of the case with the Commission on April 22 1964, relating a conversation between himself and Captain John Will Fritz of the Dallas Police Department (4 H 195): 22
And so the FBI was provided the evidence, apparently because this was a “special investigation” called for by President Johnson according to Director Hoover in that same testimony (5 H 98): 23
According to Hoover, though, this so-called “special investigation” was not requested by Johnson until after Johnson returned to Washington (“When President Johnson returned to Washington . . .”). This statement conforms with the facts, since Johnson would not have called for this special investigation any earlier. In the first place, Johnson had not been informed that President Kennedy had died until 1:10 p.m. CST (RH75), and until that time could not have been certain that he would be President. Then, Johnson remained at Parkland Hospital until 1:40 p.m. CST, after which he departed for Air Force One at Love Field, where he was sworn in as President at 2:38 p.m CST. After the swearing-in ceremony, he was flown to Andrews Air Force Base, located approximately 10 miles southeast of Washington DC (in Prince George’s County, Maryland), where he arrived at approximately 5:00 p.m CST. 24 He was then flown by helicopter to the White House, when he touched down at 5:26 pm CST (RH 144). In this whirlwind of a day, Johnson was obviously too preoccupied to call Hoover, and so when Hoover tells us that Johnson contacted him after 5:26 p.m. CST, we can believe him.
And there’s the rub: the FBI had no jurisdiction over the case, and the normal Dallas police procedure would have been to turn over the evidence to personnel at the Crime Scene Search Section of the Dallas Identification Bureau (for example, an FBI agent at Parkland Memorial Hospital refused to accept a bullet found on a stretcher by a Parkland employee; see discussion at RH 84, Paragraph 2 re: CE 399).
But here this procedure was violated. An order essentially re-designating jurisdiction had supposedly been given, but that order could not have been given any earlier than 5:26 p.m, or more likely, 6:00 pm CST. And yet, when we look at the time that the shells were handed over to Brown of the FBI, we can see that the time of the handoff was much earlier, at the outside around 2:15 p.m. CST: 25
This means that approximately 5 hours before the earliest time Johnson could have given the order to Hoover that the FBI should take command of the investigation, the FBI had already moved in to take possession of the evidence!
The question now is, who gave that order? We know it wasn’t Johnson, and from a legal perspective it couldn’t have been Hoover, the head of the FBI reporting to Johnson (and to whom Brown ultimately reported), because Hoover tells us in his testimony that he didn’t give any such order until after “President Johnson returned to Washington,” which was at 5:26 pm CST.
So if Johnson didn’t give the order, and Hoover didn’t give it, who did? Who, only one hour after the death of the President, would have had the authority to take an action of this nature on their own, absent specific orders, and in violation of the code within which State and Federal criminal investigations operated, and more importantly, who could have anticipated this direction, given that it was not decided much later by those in charge? It is critical to note that
this handoff had to consist of coordinated edicts, one by the head of the Dallas Police Department, and one by the head of the Federal Bureau of investigation — this could only be a bilateral, not a unilateral decision — and we know by the April 22 testimony of Curry that this was an agreement not easily arrived at, an agreement that took literally hours to achieve. So, well before this agreement was in fact achieved, who could have convinced Day and Studebaker to hand over the Evidence of the Century to those outside the scope of legitimate authority when no such edicts were given and the President’s death was announced just an hour earlier?
Impossible: The Case Against Lee Harvey Oswald Page 22