by Barry Ernest
Then it was over, the journey finished. Reality returned, and so did the itinerant duo—back to the Northwest and the utility bills, the mortgage, the car payments, the humdrum of everyday life.
That would suit Victoria Adams just fine. There would be few changes, few interruptions, few things to remind her of her past, at least for a few more years.
CHAPTER 18
January 1991-March 1994
I had finally settled down and moved to a bucolic place called Harrisburg, the capital of Pennsylvania. During this period came the uproar over Oliver’s Stone’s latest film, JFK—The Movie. It was his version of a heroic but still defeated Jim Garrison. Although Stone said he based his storyline on the historical record, there were plenty of Hollywood exceptions. Yet the film generated excitement, not only in the media but also with uninformed citizens swayed by its sensationalism.1
A friend of mine who knew of my past even asked that I conduct a seminar to discuss what was and wasn’t accurate in the movie. When he advertised that event, the local press was on me with questions. I had come home once more.
If nothing else, JFK quickly attracted a large number of outspoken but temporary adherents. Like the market for literary morbidity opened by the House Select Committee’s conclusion that Kennedy was likely killed by conspiracy, Stone’s portrayal opened the doors to even more authors bent on contributing their most outlandish “solutions” to the crime. Television networks showed renewed interest, and the writings of many “pioneer” critics were reprinted. This wave of questioning would not last long, but while it did, an unexpected change in the government’s attitude took place.
All at once, previously withheld Kennedy assassination documents started to be released. On October 26, 1992, then-Pres. George Bush affixed his name to the liberating legislation, officially called the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act.
Less than a year earlier, if he was to be believed, the same President Bush was unsure which government body had locked away the information in the first place. Bush had not read “the speculation about this new movie,” he told People magazine when asked in December 1991 about Stone’s JFK. “Nobody has come into this office with serious—with any—questions about the findings of the, what was it, the Warren Commission? So I don’t spend any time thinking about it.”2
The movie encouraged me to visit Harold Weisberg. I had kept in touch with him over the years but only by letter and telephone. For the first time in years, I looked at the man in a different way, realizing how old he had suddenly become.
Aware of my disillusionment with assassination research, he nevertheless encouraged me to get back into the saddle. Much needed to be done, he said, especially since more and more documents were being released. Health concerns prevented him from traveling to the Archives.
He wanted me to wear his shoes.
Weisberg could talk me into anything: an interview with Bill Decker, assignments that got me followed and my phone tapped, a search for Kennedy’s death certificate. That evening I began to pull some dusty books from my shelves.
As I had done earlier—what was it now, twenty-four years ago?—I started with the government’s version, this time the House Select Committee’s final report. Like the Warren Commission, the HSCA had compiled its own set of accompanying volumes of evidence, but fortunately only twelve of them.
The HSCA Report was impressive. It tackled many of the questions left hanging by the Warren Commission. It also created a few of its own.
Unlike its predecessor, the Committee used “scientific analysis of physical evidence” to place Oswald on the sixth floor of the Depository.3 That evidence, the Committee said, was substantial. For instance, fingerprint experts confirmed that the paper sack found near the southeast corner window, and “suitable for containing a rifle, showed a latent palmprint and fingerprint of Oswald.”4 Several cartons stacked next to that window also revealed incriminating evidence, one holding a palm print and fingerprint and another just a palm print. All of them belonged to Oswald.5
“The Committee was aware that Oswald’s access to the sixth floor during the normal course of his duties would have provided the opportunity to handle these items at any time before the assassination,” the HSCA Report conceded. “Nevertheless, the Committee believed that the way the boxes were stacked at the window and the proximity of the paper sack to the window from which the shots were fired must be considered as evidence indicating that he handled the boxes in the process of preparing the so-called sniper’s nest and that he had used the paper sack to carry the rifle into the Depository.”6
Other fingerprints were found there too. Speaking little of the care exhibited by police, the majority of those prints belonged to Dallas Police Detective Robert Studebaker.7 Strangely, additional prints remained unidentifiable, despite comparison fingerprints taken from more than a dozen Depository employees and other policemen.8
This was not unusual, the Warren Report concluded years earlier, “since these cartons contained commercial products which had been handled by many people throughout the normal course of manufacturing, warehousing, and shipping.”9 But the Report contradicted itself on this issue when it stated some three hundred pages later that because cardboard is an absorbent material, “Tests run by the FBI show that usually a latent impression on such cardboard cannot be developed by powder more than 24 hours after it is made.”10
This latter conclusion was the one used to confirm that Oswald had handled the boxes recently.
HSCA handwriting analysis established it was Oswald who had ordered and purchased the murder weapon through the mail.11 Photographic analysis established it was Oswald holding that weapon in a picture taken by his wife prior to the assassination.12 Similar analysis confirmed it was Oswald’s rifle, not a 7.65 German Mauser, that was stashed on the sixth floor.13 Neutron-activation analysis linked his weapon to a recovered whole bullet and fragments.14
Evidence seemed strong that Oswald’s rifle was the one used and that he was, at some point at least, on the sixth floor. Absent, however, was substantiation that Oswald actually fired the gun that day. Missing too was any evidence putting Oswald on the sixth floor at the crucial time of 12:30 P.M.
The Committee was faced with conflicting witnesses who said they had seen Oswald on the first, fifth, and sixth floors shortly before noon on November 22. It resolved this touchy matter simply by deciding “not to try to reconcile the testimony of these witnesses.”15 Instead, it admitted that since no one said they saw Oswald at the exact moment of the assassination, and no one claimed to have been on the sixth floor during the shooting, then no one really knew exactly where Oswald was. Therefore, “he could have still been on the sixth floor at 12:30.”16
Despite that kind of logic, one thing was for certain. Oswald wasn’t watching the assassination from the front steps of the building, as many critics continued to claim. The Committee cited forensic anthropologists who said photographs of lookalikes Billy Lovelady and Oswald confirmed “the man in the doorway bore a much stronger resemblance to Lovelady than to Oswald.”17 The pattern of the shirt worn by the doorway man “corresponded more closely with the shirt worn that day by Lovelady.”18
Plus, Lovelady admitted to being there.19
The most questionable part about putting Oswald behind the rifle on the sixth floor was the Committee’s use of testimony that said he was spotted afterward in the second-floor lunchroom. How his presence in the lunchroom proved he was four flights above as the president drove by was not made clear. The Committee cited three “particularly significant” witnesses in an attempt to justify its odd reasoning.20
“Depository Superintendent Roy Truly and Dallas Police Officer M. L. Baker both entered the Depository right after the shots were fired,” the HSCA explained. “They encountered Oswald on the second floor, and in testimony to the Warren Commission, they gave the time as 2 to 3 minutes after the shots.”21
As a footnote to that “2 to 3 minutes” re
ference, the reader is directed to the Warren Commission testimony of both Baker and Truly. Yet the footnote does not pinpoint where in the combined fifty-eight pages of testimony of those men that the actual “2 to 3 minutes” reference is made.
That is because it doesn’t exist. Baker’s only mention of timing refers to the FBI reconstructions of his movements from outside the Depository to the second-floor lunchroom: one minute thirty seconds on the first attempt, one minute fifteen seconds on the second.22 Truly gave times as one minute eighteen seconds and one minute fifteen seconds.23
Neither one referred to a window of “2 to 3 minutes.” Even the Warren Report did not offer a “2 to 3 minutes” timeframe.
Why the Committee added more time onto what Baker and Truly said took place is a mystery. That exaggeration is even more confusing when the HSCA Report cites its third “significant” witness: “A witness who personally knew Oswald, Mrs. Robert A. Reid, also a Depository employee, testified to the Warren Commission that she also saw him on the second floor approximately 2 minutes after the assassination.”24
Mrs. Reid had, in fact, used that two-minute figure in her Warren Commission testimony.25 But her sighting occurred after Oswald paused to purchase a Coca-Cola from a soda machine, according to the Warren Report; after Oswald’s confrontation with Baker; and after he then walked into her office down the hall from the lunchroom. If she saw him two minutes after the assassination, her timing actually fits better with Baker’s and Truly’s initial estimates before the Commission that they encountered Oswald in the lunchroom some ninety seconds or less after the shooting and not the Committee’s “2 to 3 minute” remark.
Forgetting this obvious contradiction, the HSCA Report concluded, “The testimony of these three witnesses was mutually corroborating. Since all were outside the Depository when the shots were fired, their statements that it took them about 2 minutes to get to the second floor were reasonable. It appeared equally reasonable that in those same 2 minutes Oswald could have walked from the sixth floor window to the rear stairway and down four flights of stairs to the second floor.26
“The conclusion with respect to this evidence alone was not that Lee Harvey Oswald was the assassin,” the HSCA summed up, “but merely that the testimony of these witnesses appeared credible and was probative on the question of Oswald’s whereabouts at the time of the assassination.”27
The HSCA Report admitted its awareness of contrary arguments as to when and how the paths of Oswald, Baker, and Truly crossed. (Was this a veiled reference to Victoria Adams?) But on-site tests, it explained, support the Committee’s contention Oswald arrived on the second floor from the sixth floor.
“The Committee traveled to Dallas and toured the Texas state book Depository building [sic]. During those visits, the times required to reach the second floor from both the street and the sixth floor were determined. The Committee found that the testimony of Truly and Baker does not preclude a finding that Oswald was on the sixth floor at the time the shots were fired.”28
The times the Committee “determined” or the methods used to conduct those tests were not included in its published evidence.
Curious also was the complete absence of inquiry into Victoria Adams. Yet the Committee was clearly aware of who she was, what she had said, and what she had done. Based on internal working papers, the HSCA was also interested in the timing of her trip down the stairs.
For instance, it reprinted in full Wesley Liebeler’s critiquing memorandum, which discussed the confusion over how the Warren Report had handled Miss Adams.29 It also possessed an August 8, 1964, memo written by Warren Commission staffer Howard Willens, who, commenting on how the matter of Oswald’s descent from the sixth floor could be handled, suggested, “the Commission could rely on some witnesses and reject the testimony of others, such as Victoria Adams [author’s emphasis].”30
Despite its apparent disregard in the printed record, at least someone on the HSCA staff showed more than just a passing interest in Miss Adams. That person requested copies of her original testimony before the Warren Commission. And the copies that had been requested were only of that portion where she discussed when she left the window and the timing of her descent.31
The HSCA Is “Deeply Troubled”
“The Committee found that while most of the Depository employees were outside of the building at the time of the assassination and returned inside afterwards, Oswald did the reverse; he was inside before the assassination and afterward he went outside,” the HSCA observed. “Every other Depository employee either had an alibi for the time of the assassination or returned to the building immediately thereafter. Oswald alone neither remained nor had an alibi.”32
Actually, he did have an alibi. He told police he was eating lunch on the first floor when the shots were fired, then went up the stairs to get a drink in the second-floor lunchroom. Of course, no one believed him.
“That Oswald left the building within minutes after the assassination was significant,” the Committee concluded.33
The HSCA Report neglected Roger Craig’s statement of seeing a man similar to Oswald fleeing in a station wagon.34 Nor did it address the many inconsistencies in Oswald’s outbound journey. Instead, it merely said Oswald boarded a bus, took a taxi to his rooming house, changed clothes, and then walked nine-tenths of a mile to his encounter with Tippit.
Scientific analysis by the HSCA “determined positively” that the four cartridge cases found in the bushes near where Officer Tippit was slain had all been fired from the pistol removed from Oswald’s possession when he was arrested thirty-five minutes later in the Texas Theatre.35 As it turned out, those shell casings—the ones tossed aside in front of several gaping witnesses—were the only ballistics link between Oswald’s gun and the shooting. Since Oswald’s revolver had been “partially modified” to use different ammunition, scientific analysis of the bullets recovered from Tippit’s body was not able to conclude they had been fired from Oswald’s gun. All the Committee could do was say those bullets “were consistent with their having been fired from Oswald’s revolver.”36
Did Oswald possess a capacity for violence? “The presence of such a trait would not, in and of itself, prove much,” the Committee reasoned, but the absence of that character flaw “would be inconsistent” with what Oswald was accused of.37
The Committee said Oswald shot Tippit with a display of extreme overkill, tried to shoot other officers during his arrest, and attempted to kill Gen. Edwin Walker.38 He seemed fully capable of assassinating the president.
But the Walker matter begged for more clarification. Despite scientific analysis, examination of the “bullet fragment” removed from the wall in Walker’s home showed only “characteristics similar to bullets fired from Oswald’s Mannlicher-Carcano rifle.”39 The Committee’s use of the term “bullet fragment” implied that only a small portion of the projectile had been recovered. But a check of the final report of the Committee’s Firearms Panel reveals that what was actually examined was a nearly whole “full metal jacketed, lead core bullet” that weighed “147.1” of the 162 grains usually found in 6.5 Mannlicher-Carcano ammunition.40
“In addition,” the Committee continued, “neutron activation analysis of this fragment confirmed that it was probably a Mannlicher- bullet [sic].”41
How could sophisticated neutron-activation testing of a nearly whole bullet confirm only that it was probably from Oswald’s gun?
The Committee admitted it was aware that two people were seen driving around Walker’s home in a suspicious manner two days before the shooting, and more than one person was seen leaving after the shot was fired. “These statements have never been substantiated, and the case remains unsolved,” the Committee said.42 As to whether Oswald may have had associates in the Walker matter, the Committee acknowledged, “No leads were developed, and this line of inquiry was abandoned.”43
There was even more. As mentioned, S. M. Holland’s description of the shots fit nicely with the Committe
e’s acoustical sequence. Yet the Committee could not verify his sighting of smoke, stating, “None of the photographs of the grassy knoll that were analyzed by the photographic evidence panel revealed any evidence of a puff of smoke or flash of light, as reported by several people in the crowd.”44
The Committee admitted to being “deeply troubled” by Oswald’s murder and, after investigating it, disagreed with the Warren Commission’s conclusion as to how Ruby gained access to the Dallas Police basement. According to the Warren Report, Ruby entered without assistance, “probably” by walking down the Main Street ramp.45 It based that conclusion solely on Ruby’s own version of events, while ignoring, according to the HSCA, the “eyewitness testimony of every witness in the relevant area.”46
The conclusion of the HSCA was that Ruby entered the police station, with aid from a mysterious helper, by way of a less conspicuous doorway from an adjacent alley, then headed down to the basement area, where the shooting took place. Although who provided the aid was not made clear, the HSCA Report implied it came from police personnel, adding “the assistance may have been provided with no knowledge of Ruby’s intentions.”47
The Committee went on to say it did not believe Ruby’s act of vengeance was a burst of spontaneity but rather “involved at least some premeditation.”48
The Committee also was “troubled” by Ruby’s close proximity to Oswald during a press conference at the police station on Friday night and by his appearance Saturday in Dealey Plaza when Oswald originally was scheduled for transfer to the county jail. “These sightings . . . could indicate that Ruby was pursuing Oswald’s movements throughout the weekend.”49
Was Lee Oswald a spy? The HSCA found “no credible evidence” he was connected with the FBI or CIA. Jack Ruby, however, was a different matter.