Chapter 1: The Warren Commission

“Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.”
Aldous Huxley

In the American system of law, a man is innocent until proven otherwise. Or at least that’s the theory. To determine whether a man is innocent or guilty of the crimes he has been charged with, the defendant has the right to a trial, where a jury of twelve selected citizens has to decide whether the evidence brought to the court’s attention during the trial is strong enough so that the jury’s verdict reads guilty. Quite clearly, the probable defendant who was charged for the assassination of President Kennedy and Patrolman J.D.Tippit would have been Lee Harvey Oswald. However, he died before even a date for the start of the trial was set. Therefore, Lee Oswald never got his days in court; at least, should the charges against him not have been dropped before the trial began.
Though it may seem strange, the evidence against Oswald is not as convincing as some believe. This would have surfaced if Oswald would have had to stand trial and his attorney(s) wanted to counter the District Attorney’s conclusions. But because of the impossibility to try Oswald before a court, other methods had to be used to judge whether he was, in fact, the assassin. The death of Oswald also signalled the end for the search for other suspects. If there had been other suspects, the police, aided by such organizations as the FBI and CIA, could have hunted these suspects down and eventually bring them to trial. But the immediate conclusion - drawn within hours of the assassination - was that Oswald acted alone.

A year later, the Warren Commission unanimously decided Lee Harvey Oswald was indeed the sole assassin of both President Kennedy and Patrolman J.D. Tippit. Though it may seem this Commission’s only motive was the truth, as Commission member Gerald Ford claimed, it did rule against the presence of an attorney representing Lee Oswald’s and his family’s interest. The motive for this ruling was ... that the Commission was out to seek the truth, not to blame Oswald of the crime simply because he was the major (and only) suspect. Seriously? The Warren Commission’s truth turned out to inculpate Lee Oswald as the assassin in both crimes and it seems only logical that some people thought the Commission had done just that: blame Oswald because he had been everyone’s initial and lone suspect.
In retrospect, it is clear that the Warren Commission played both District Attorney and jury. But nowhere is it shown they played defense attorney. Therefore the jury’s verdict is simply based on the District Attorney’s reasoning, a reasoning which has to make the defendant look guilty because if this is not the case, the District Attorney shouldn’t even have brought that person to trial in the first place. Because of the lack of a defense attorney and of the simple fact that a commission is not the same as a jury trial, the Warren Commission’s conclusion has to receive a critical analysis. If they can stand the test, their verdict stands. If not...

A. The Assassination of President Kenndy and the Wounding of Governor John B. Connally

Paraffin-test

In order to have killed somebody with a fire-arm, you have to have fired that weapon in the general direction of that person. Therefore, the Dallas Police had to find out whether or not Oswald had fired a weapon on November 22, 1963. To find out, Dallas Police administered a paraffin-test to Oswald’s hand and his right cheek. (They must have assumed Oswald was right-handed since they didn’t check his left cheek. This negligence could, of course, have been a fateful mistake.) The test proved positive for both hands and negative for the right cheek, even though chief of the Dallas FBI-bureau Gordon Shanklin wrongly ‘informed’ the press that nitrates had been found on the right cheek. D.A. Henry Wade, receiving the results of the test, told the media that the paraffin-test had established Oswald had fired a gun. Of course, Oswald was arrested for the murder of Tippit, who had been shot with a gun, whereas Kennedy was shot with a riffle. The paraffin-test therefore suggested Oswald had not shot at Kennedy.
As such, critics of the Warren Commission pointed out that the tests proved Oswald didn’t shoot with a rifle because the test proved negative for the cheek. But experts disagreed with the simple logic. They claimed a revolver had space between the cylinders, which gave room for the gasses to escape, thus making Oswald test positive, i.e. he had fired a gun that day. A rifle, however, had no such gap between the chamber and barrel because the cartridge sealed the chamber off, not allowing any gases to escape. This meant a cheek-test could prove negative even though the man had fired a rifle.

These conclusions therefore seem to show that Oswald shot at J.D.Tippit with a revolver. Do they? Actually, they don’t since the paraffin-test only shows whether or not there are nitrates on the hands and cheek (or on any other part of the body for that matter). Though it is true gunpowder residue contains nitrates, tobacco, urine, cosmetics, paint and several other substances contain nitrates as well. Mere contact with any of these products can trigger a positive result. Indeed, to their credit, the Warren Commission concluded that a paraffin-test only indicated whether or not there were nitrates on the hands or cheek and that this didn’t show anything about whether or not someone had fired a weapon.
On the issue of the paraffin-test, we see that the Commission played the role of the jury correctly, not accepting a District Attorney’s reasoning, which would be that the test showed Oswald shot a gun.

The Rifle

The next step is to find out if the rifle used in this crime showed any signs of Oswald handling it. The Warren Commission had this to say about the search for fingerprints on the rifle: “A few minutes after the rifle was discovered on the sixth floor of the Depository Building it was examined by Lt. J.C. Day of the identification bureau of the Dallas Police. He lifted the rifle by the wooden stock after his examination convinced him the wood was too rough to take fingerprints. So the Warren Commission had bad luck since this was where the assassin, believed to be Oswald, would have held the rifle while firing it. John Carl Day then went on to inspect the knob of the bolt, but he discovered no prints on that part of the rifle. Then “he (Day) applied fingerprint powder to the side of the metal housing near the trigger, and noticed traces of two prints.”
According to Day, the “FBI ordered me not to make a comparison between the rifle print and Oswald’s print”, which is remarkable - the FBI did not want to find out whether or not Oswald had handled the rifle! Some time later, around 23h45, the rifle was handed over to FBI-agent Vincent Drain, who took it to Washington, to the FBI Laboratory, where Sebastian F. Latona, on the morning of November 23, examined the rifle. He found the areas where prints were visible protected by cellophane. Latona, however, concluded the prints were insufficient for identification and that they were of no value. He processed the complete weapon and found no other identifiable prints. His boss, FBI-director J.E. Hoover therefore signed the statement that “no latent prints of value were developed on Oswald’s revolver, the cartridge cases, the unfired cartridge, the clip in the rifle or the inner parts of the rifle.” (my emphasis)

However, contrary to the above conclusions, the Warren Commission argues that Lt. Day did lift a palm print from the rifle, found on the inner parts of the rifle. Day claimed the lifting was so complete that no trace of the print was left. A member of his lab, Rusty Livingstone, verified that the lifting was complete, but also claimed that the print was not fresh, but that it was an old print. This means that even though there might have been a print on the rifle, there is no evidence Oswald handled the rifle that day, which says enough. Even so, there is no record of such a discovery on November 22. This ‘evidence’ was only released on November 26 and arrived at FBI headquarters on November 29.
Even though the Warren Commission said the lifting was so complete that no trace of the print was left, Lt. Day believed there were sufficient traces left on the rifle barrel. During his examination of the rifle, FBI-expert Latona didn’t see these traces. Lt. Day said he nevertheless ‘specifically pointed out the print to Agent Drain when I gave him the rifle.’ FBI-agent Drain denied this had happened and said the palm print had been faked.
The FBI, trying to clarify the matter, attempted to make Day certify a statement that he lifted the palm print, something Lt. Day declined to do. Though this might be a prime example of interdepartmental rivalry and dissatisfaction, it does seem rather strange Day would not officially state he had found the palm print.

The sniper’s nest on the 6th floor of the Book Depository, and the position in which the rifle was allegedly found.

Because of this unbinding commitment of someone who claimed he had lifted a palm print but who didn’t want to go on record as saying he had done just what he had been telling everyone he had done, the Warren Commission doubted the legitimacy of the palm print. A memorandum from Rosen to Belmont at the FBI, dated August 28, 1964, states: “Rankin (the Commission’s Chief Council) advised ... there was a serious question in the minds of the Commission as to whether or not the palm print ... is a legitimate latent palm impression or whether it was obtained from some other source and that for this reason this matter needs to be resolved.” It seems only likely the FBI tried, once again, to get an official statement from Day.
There is ‘reasonable doubt’ about the legitimacy of this print when we look into the chain of possession of the evidence. The idea of ‘chain of evidence’ means that the whereabouts/possession of a piece of evidence has to be known at all times if this evidence wants to be admitted as evidence during a trial. On the afternoon of November 24, hours after Oswald was killed in the basement of the Dallas Police Department, the rifle was returned to Dallas. Two days later, the rifle was again returned to Washington. No plausible reason was given why the weapon had to be flown back and forth between Washington and Dallas. Is there a reason?
Coincidentally or not, the corpse of Lee Oswald was taken to Miller Funeral Home after he was declared dead on November 24 and before he was buried on November 25. The Director of the Funeral Home, Paul Groody, stated that the FBI came to fingerprint Oswald’s corpse while it was in his Funeral Home. He even had to remove the ‘dirt’ from Oswald’s fingers afterwards. Most interestingly, FBI agent Richard Harrison said he had personally driven an FBI agent and the rifle to the Funeral Home. Harrison said he ‘understood that the agent intended to place Oswald’s palm print on the rifle for comparison purposes’ (my emphasis). Why this was done is unclear: Oswald was fingerprinted while in police custody and these prints were in pristine condition, thus eliminating the need to take new fingerprints.
After these new prints were taken, the rifle was returned to Washington and Lt. Day suddenly released his data of having found a palm print on the rifle as early as November 22. Three days later, the palm print arrived at the FBI in Washington and Latona identified this palm print as the right palm print of Lee Harvey Oswald. However, he was unable to determine the time elapsed since the placing of the print and the date of the lift. Perhaps this was just as well since there is a reasonable chance the print was placed only when the FBI fingerprinted Oswald’s corpse, not when the rifle was allegedly fired in Dealey Plaza.

If there had been one, Oswald’s defense attorney could have argued that the FBI-agent lifting the palm print ‘for comparison purposes’ from Oswald’s corpse, was, probably unconsciously, placing the palm print on the rifle which Lt. Day claimed to have lifted on November 22. Lt. Day, however, only released this information on November 26 and declined to certify he had lifted the palm print on November 22. Furthermore, to the FBI, there was nothing to compare with since no palm print was reported to the FBI (or to anyone else, for that matter) prior to November 26.
To put it in simple terms: the Warren Commission claims there was indeed a palm print lifted from the rifle on November 22, but there is no evidence to back this conclusion. In fact, should we have to draw a conclusion as to when the palm print was lifted, the most sound explanation, perhaps even coming close to as being beyond reasonable doubt, is that the palm-print was lifted after the rifle had been pressed against Oswald’s corpse’s palm while lying in the Funeral Home.

After the FBI had fingerprinted Oswald’s corpse, D.A. Wade, on Monday November 25, said: ‘Let’s see ... his fingerprints were found on the gun. Have I said that?’ Interestingly, he hadn’t said that: that was the first time he did. Wade also said that the strongest evidence against Oswald was the ‘fact’ that his prints were found on the rifle. That Monday evening, the Dallas Times Herald headlined: ‘OSWALD’S PRINTS REVEALED ON RIFLE KILLING KENNEDY.’ Clearly, this statement was blatantly false since, even though the Herald might have had inside information about Day having lifted a palm print from the rifle (should this indeed have happened), the FBI only received the palm print on November 29 and therefore couldn’t conclude (and didn’t conclude) the palm print was Oswald’s on November 25, the day the Herald carried the headline. Day had specifically said that the FBI had ordered him not to make a comparison. The press reported a rumor, not a fact. Interestingly, Chief Curry said that if they could “get” a print on the rifle, that would prove to him (and beyond doubt) Oswald was the assassin. It seems someone took the word “get” a bit too literally.

Because of the placement of the palm print, the Warren Commission had to conclude that Oswald had handled the rifle when it was disassembled. To strengthen their conclusion, they said that palm prints were as unique as fingerprints. Some experts agree on this uniqueness; others disagree. Either way, there is no evidence that Oswald handled the weapon on the day of the assassination.

What rifle?

However, we have made an assumption. It is an assumption that seems so evident the Commission acted as if it was a minor matter. We have assumed that the rifle found on the scene of the crime is the same as the rifle examined by Lt. Day or/and FBI expert Latona. Just like the Commission did with the palmprint, I have neglected to investigate the evidentiary chain of the rifle, identified by the Warren Commission as a Manlicher-Carcano 6.5mm.

The rifle on the sixth floor of the Depository Building was found by three officers, Weitzman, Boone and Craig. Capt. Fritz and Lt. Day were called and identified the weapon. This should mean that Weitzman, Boone and Craig only saw the rifle but didn’t handle it, whereas Fritz and Day did handle it. This means that the testimony by Fritz and Day is much more important because they did a more thorough investigation of the rifle.
Therefore, we will begin with the identification by Lt. J.C. Day. The Warren Report has this to say: “Lt. Day promptly noted that stamped on the rifle itself was the serial number C2766, as well as the markings ‘1940’, ‘MADE ITALY’ and ‘Cal. 65”. ‘Promptly’ is a rather vague description. Most people believe that it means that the rifle was identified as such at the Book Depository. However, Lt. Day was never asked whether he identified the rifle at that scene.
WBAP, a local radio-station, broadcasted the following on November 22: ‘Crime Lt. J.C. Day just came out of that building. Reported British 303 rifle with telescopic lens.’ Questioned by Commission Council Belin, Day was asked whether he ever described the rifle as anything but a 6.5 caliber with regard to the rifle itself. Day replied: ‘I didn’t describe the rifle to anyone other than police officers.’ Day states he didn’t report to the WBAP-journalist(s) that it was a British 303 rifle. But Day clearly didn’t answer Belin’s questions. Since the issue was not pursued, it is very possible Day did describe the rifle as anything but a 6.5 caliber, but only to the other police officers, not the media. Day also claimed that driving back to the office with FBI-agent Odum, Odum radioed in the identity of the rifle. Odum never mentioned this and was not called before the Warren Commission. Once again, we see that a claim made by Lt. Day is uncorroborated.
The Commission failed to ask one important question: did Day identify the weapon at the Book Depository? It failed in forcing Day to answer the question whether he identified the rifle as something other than a Mannlicher-Carcano 6.5mm.

Answering to the speculation that the name of the rifle appeared on the rifle itself and should therefore have been identified easily and correctly (i.e. only as being a 6.5 Mannlicher-Carcano), the Commission stated there was no manufacturer’s name on the rifle. The only inscription on the rifle was ‘made in Italy’. This does not corroborate the Commission statement, in the same Report, that there were other inscriptions on the rifle; in fact, the statements are at odds with each other. It seems nobody noticed this flaw before the Report was officially released.
The other person that identified the rifle as being a 6.5 mm Mannlicher-Carcano was Capt. Fritz, who, unlike Day, was not a member of the DPD Identification section. Before the Warren Commission, Boone, who found the weapon, said he had heard Capt. Fritz refer to the rifle as being a Mauser. Asked by Commission Council Ball about this, Fritz denied he did. Ball also asked Fritz whether he had heard any conversation about the rifle being a Mauser. Fritz answered: ‘I heard all kinds of reports about the rifle. They called it most everything.’ (my emphasis). Clearly, Fritz had to answer yes or no, something which he failed to do. Implied, however, Fritz does seem to admit he heard about the rifle being a Mauser, among other identifications. But Fritz, like Day, was quite eager not give possibly embarrassing answers.

The testimony by Fritz and Day surely has many inaccuracies. A full-proof identification of the rifle, on the scene, as being a 6.5 mm Mannlicher-Carcano has definitely not been proven beyond reasonable doubt, let alone any doubt. What did Boone, Weitzman and Craig have to say about the rifle they had found? The Report says: ‘the rifle Boone found, a 6.5 millimeter Mannlicher-Carcano.’ Deputy Eugene Boone, in his report on November 22, however, identified the rifle as a 7.65 mm German Mauser; “what appeared to be a 7.65mm Mauser with ‘a telescopic sight. The rifle had want (sic: i.e. what) appeared to be a brownish, black-stock and blue steel, metal parts.” Boone later said he used Mauser as a generic term. One wonders how he used 7.65mm. Asked to identify the Mannlicher-Carcano when appearing before the Warren Commission as the weapon he had found, he stated: “It looks like the same rifle. I have no way of being positive.” (my emphasis) This is anything but a positive identification. A positive identification should read: “It is (in fact) the same rifle. I am (very) positive of that.” His use of words that it ‘looks like’ the same rifle, implies it resembles the weapon he found, but is not the same as the one he found. Why did Boone fail to positively identify the weapon? Most importantly, Boone said he couldn’t identify it “because it didn’t have his marks on it”. In order to mark a rifle, one has to touch it and the Commission gave the impression Boone saw but didn’t touch the weapon, at least not before Day did. Of course, not finding your initials on the rifle means the rifle shown to you could be not the same rifle you found; that the rifle was substituted.
Weitzman also claimed it was a Mauser. The Warren Report, in the speculation and rumors section, claimed that Weitzman had little more than a glimpse of it. The Report implied that little weight should be given to Weitzman’s statements. Weitzman stated about the rifle in a signed affadavit that “this rifle was a 7.65 Mauser bolt action equipped with a 4/18 scope, a thick leather brownish-black sling on it.” Most certainly, such a detailed description means Weitzman had a thorough look at the rifle, even though he still might have been mistaken about the identification of the rifle. This, however, is unlikely since Weitzman was known to be experienced in guns and had even worked in gun shops. Weitzman was not called before the Warren Commission and was (therefore) not asked to identify the rifle the Commission had as possibly the one he had found. At the very least, Weitzman did have a good look at the rifle, contrary to the Report’s conclusion, and should have been called to testify. Why wasn’t he, though?

Deputy Sheriff Roger Craig had this to say about him finding the rifle: ‘Boone and I found the rifle which I might add was a 7.65 Mauser, so stamped on the barrel.’ What Craig is implying here is obvious: it was easy to identify the weapon as a Mauser because it was stamped on the rifle itself. You didn’t even have to know anything about weapons, you only had to be able to read and notice the inscription. It seems Craig somehow believed they wouldn’t ask him about what kind of rifle it was (since the Commission had a 6.5 Mannlicher-Carcano, not a 7.65 Mauser) and outsmarted the Commission, putting into evidence he had identified it as a Mauser and not, as the Commission probably hoped he would do, a Mannlicher-Carcano.
With no positive identification of the Mannlicher-Carcano as the rifle being found on the sixth floor of the Depository Building, there is, in fact, no basis for the allegation, made by the Commission, that the Mannlicher-Carcano is that weapon. There were, in fact, negative identifications of the Mannlicher-Carcano as the weapon found around the sniper’s nest in the TSBD.
Could a rifle (a German Mauser) be switched (with a Mannlicher-Carcano)? Dallas Police Chief Jesse Curry said that anyone wanting to substitute rifles ‘could have gotten away with it at the time’ (implied: nobody would have noticed the substitution). No special precautions were taken to isolate the weapon as historic evidence, he said. The Warren Commission, if it had faced all available evidence, should have concluded there is reasonable doubt on this issue. The possibility exists that the Mannlicher-Carcano was not the rifle found on the sixth floor of the Depository Building. The Warren Commission, however, failed to conclude this. Even though D.A. Wade had no first-hand knowledge on the issue, even he stated, to the media, that he believed the rifle was identified as a Mauser. It would therefore have been interesting to see whether he would have used the Mannlicher-Carcano in his efforts to convince the jury of Oswald’s guilt, should Oswald’s case have been presented in court. The Warren Commission arrived upon a conclusion, which, once again, was the conclusion of a District Attorney: trying to blame the defendant.

The Commission continued its quest, trying to find out whether the Mannlicher-Carcano had recently been fired, trying to link the Mannlicher-Carcano to Oswald, trying to link the cartridges that were found on the sixth floor of the Depository Building to the Mannlicher-Carcano and other attempts, like trying to determine how Oswald might have brought the Mannlicher-Carcano into the Depository Building. Interesting as some of these attempts might be as to discover the methods and verify the conclusions of the Commission (cf. appendix to this part), they don’t really add anything to the case against Oswald since the Mannlicher-Carcano does not seem to be the weapon used in the crime, the assassination of the President, or, for that matter, the weapon found on the sixth floor of the TSBD.
So far, there is no proof of Oswald’s guilt, even though the Commission used two of the three items discussed so far as proof of Oswald’s guilt. The attempt to place Oswald on the sixth floor of the Book Depository at the time of the shooting has even turned into a side-issue. However, (falsely, because it is not based on any evidence) assuming that Oswald did fire the Mannlicher-Carcano, could turn out to be an interesting issue. There is still the possibility Oswald used the German Mauser (or any other weapon) to shoot at the President or/and Governor Connally. Therefore, an investigation into Oswald’s whereabouts at the time of the shooting has to be made. If Oswald can be placed at the sixth floor of the Depository Building, he might indeed be the assassin, even though it would be clear that some of the primary evidence has major shortcomings.

Oswald’s whereabouts

The Warren Report put Oswald on the sixth floor of the Depository during the assassination, but it even had an eyewitness who testified that Oswald was, in fact, the assassin he saw in the window on the sixth floor. The Commission’s star witness was Howard Leslie Brennan, a 45 year old pipe-fitter who, on November 22, was working on a construction project behind the Book Depository. Commission member Gerald Ford, In an article in LIFE Magazine on October 2, 1964 said that Brennan was their most important witness. Brennan was “the only known person who actually saw Oswald fire his rifle at President Kennedy.”
LIFE