CHAPTER 4
IN EARLY MARCH, WARREN WAS DEMANDING A HEAVIER SCHEDULE OF commission witnesses, and our lawyers were eager to begin depositions in Texas. On March 4, the commission heard from Mark Lane, who had avowed in countless public appearances that Oswald had been wrongly accused and that the commission could not be trusted to report the true facts. Because Lane had attracted so much attention, the commission decided to hear him in person rather than appear high-handed by ignoring him. Rankin asked Lane to bring with him all documentation relevant to the assassination of President Kennedy.1
Lane ignored the commission’s request for documentation and repeated almost verbatim his basic lecture on the subject. Warren again denied Lane’s request to represent Oswald before the commission. The commission members listened patiently as Lane asserted that Oswald had not killed the president or Officer Tippit, claiming that multiple assassins had fired five shots with the fatal ones coming from the front, and that any evidence to the contrary was the result of altered autopsy reports and distortion of witness statements. I think that Lane’s failure to provide any evidentiary support for his contentions, and his refusal to acknowledge certain established facts about Oswald and his conduct, convinced the commission to schedule only witnesses with firsthand knowledge of important facts. After Lane’s dramatic but empty performance, dealing with the critics in person or through correspondence became a staff job that often wound up on my desk.2
Lane was the last witness on the commission’s schedule at that point. We on the staff were still debating which potential witnesses should appear before the commission, a question of considerable significance. The members needed to see and hear key witnesses themselves. The American justice system places a high value on hearing testimony in person. An individual’s manner of speaking, tone of voice, forthrightness, and response to cross-examination provide important insights for those evaluating the evidence and determining the truth. Reading a written record of testimony provides only a distant second alternative. For us, the commission’s credibility was on the line. To the extent they relied on witnesses they saw and heard in person, their decisions would carry more weight.
The chief justice wanted the commission to hear as many witnesses as possible. He wanted to concentrate initially on witnesses who saw or participated in the events on November 22. Relying on the recommendations of five of the teams (excluding presidential protection), I prepared a draft memo for Rankin proposing a group of key witnesses for the commission and another group to be deposed by our lawyers. As we revised this memo, we assumed the commission should hear witnesses on all phases of this investigation, not just a few central issues, and that this first group should reflect Warren’s preferences. Rankin initially listed forty-nine commission witnesses, and offered this rationale for their selection: “[M]ost of these witnesses will supply testimony pertaining to the actual events on the day of the assassination, the medical treatment of President Kennedy and Governor Connally, the identity of the assassin, the background of Lee Harvey Oswald, and the security precautions taken by the Dallas Police Department after Oswald’s arrest.” Rankin left for future consideration the few “political” witnesses, such as President Johnson and Governor Connolly, because the commission had not decided whether these individuals should appear before it.3
As I recorded in my journal, I thought that “the adoption of this schedule is perhaps a more significant event in the internal operations of the Commission than is generally realized. It marks the commitment by the Commission to taking a considerable amount of testimony from witnesses with relevant information and to frame conclusions based on this testimony independent of the investigation conducted previously” by the FBI and other agencies. I hoped that this approach would “win for its final report a much greater degree of public support than would otherwise have been the case.”4
Although many changes were made over the next several months to the lists of witnesses, the total number and range of witnesses demonstrated the commission’s commitment to pursue an exhaustive investigation. The facts refute the contention of future critics that our inquiry was seriously defective: Appendix V to the report lists 552 witnesses whose testimony, deposition, or statement we took. Whatever flaws or deficiencies are identified in these evidentiary materials, there can be no serious doubt that the commission fully carried out its mandate to conduct a comprehensive and independent investigation.
A Debate about Advance Interviews of Witnesses
Before going to Dallas to take depositions, we had to await the conclusion of the Ruby trial. The Dallas district attorney indicted Jack Ruby on murder charges soon after the Oswald shooting, and a well-known defense attorney from San Francisco named Melvin Belli represented Ruby at the trial. The Texas authorities, working in the glare of worldwide publicity, did not want any slipups or unexpected events that might enable Belli to win an acquittal. Belli argued that Ruby was legally insane when he shot Oswald, but on March 14 the jury returned a verdict of murder with malice. Ruby received a death sentence.5
We were still hashing out policies governing the taking of testimony in early March. We were always mindful that our work was historic and would, therefore, be scrutinized for flaws by one generation after another. We traveled somewhat uncharted territory; presidential assassinations—Lincoln in 1865, Garfield in 1881, and McKinley in 1901—happened rarely and always under unique circumstances. In these instances the assassin or his accomplices were quickly apprehended and found guilty after a civilian or military trial, which provided an arena in which some of the critical facts of the assassination were made public. Without any trial for the deceased Oswald and no identified conspirators, there were few fact-finding alternatives for the task that President Johnson had assigned to the commission. Major investigations in the United States were regularly conducted by congressional committees or the Justice Department with the use of grand juries, but those federal alternatives (as well as the Texas equivalents) had been rejected here in favor of our commission. So we had few precedents for the enormous task upon which we were embarked. We on the staff shared a determination to be fair, thorough, and right. But we often differed on how to get there and discussed our differences passionately.
At two staff meetings on March 2, the staff clashed over whether commission lawyers should be allowed to interview prospective witnesses before they testified before the commission. After listening to various views, Rankin decided to appoint a committee composed of Redlich, Belin, and Liebeler to submit recommendations to him. The committee approach did not work as intended; each of its three members produced a different proposal.6
Belin, a trial lawyer, supported advance interviews as the best way to prepare for depositions and testimony before the commission. He did not, however, believe these interviews should be transcribed. His arguments impressed me, especially because they were strongly endorsed by his “senior” counsel, Joe Ball. This team had perhaps the most productive partnership on the staff, despite (or perhaps because of) their different professional histories. Ball was sixty-one years old, a very successful criminal defense lawyer in Los Angeles, a teacher of criminal law and procedure at the University of South California, and a member of the US Judicial Conference Advisory Committee on Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. Belin—a soft-spoken, formal Midwesterner who preferred bow ties—was more than twenty years younger than Ball, but quickly became fond of his more outspoken and entertaining colleague. Belin had been in private practice, primarily on the civil side, since 1954, and ran his own firm in Iowa. Together the pair had a wealth of practical experience in dealing with clients and developing a factual record.7
Redlich, a constitutional law professor, opposed unrecorded interviews of all witnesses by staff lawyers in advance of their testimony because of the risk that the interviewing lawyer would influence—intentionally or inadvertently—the witness’s testimony to be different from what it would be without any such interview. He was concerned that “an unrecorded interview with a witness creates the inevitable danger that the witness will be conditioned to give certain testimony when he is under oath***I believe that this danger exists notwithstanding the complete good faith of the staff member and his sincere desire to obtain only the truth.” Redlich proposed that interviews might take place after the witness had testified on the record.8
Liebeler took a middle road. He agreed with Redlich that witnesses appearing before the commission should not be preinterviewed, but contended that those deposed by staff lawyers should be. Liebeler agreed, as did Belin and Redlich, that Rankin as general counsel could authorize exceptions to any general rule.9
I entered this debate in part to counter Redlich’s strong advocacy. This was one of the few occasions when I disagreed with him. In general, I questioned the need for any procedures regarding interviews by our lawyers. I reminded Rankin that most of our prospective witnesses had already been interviewed by at least one investigating agency and therefore the preconditioning of concern to Redlich likely had already taken place. In fact, I thought that one of the objectives of pretestimony interviews should be to provide an opportunity for a witness to reflect again on the facts, notwithstanding any prior statements, and try to present the “truth” in sworn testimony. My most serious reservation centered on the fact that the Redlich proposal reflected adversely on our lawyers and might well prevent them from doing their best work. I proposed that advance interviews be permitted with Rankin’s approval so long as the responsible lawyer would make certain that any important inconsistencies between the previous statements and the sworn testimony be made part of the record.10
After considering these views, Rankin came to a decision: “The members of the staff are free to interview witnesses informally in the exercise of their best judgment.” As he usually did, Rankin announced his decision in a memo to the staff so that everyone was informed at the same time. I would like to believe that he considered my arguments more persuasive than Redlich’s, but it is far more likely that he learned that the chief justice had addressed this issue at a staff meeting while Rankin was out of town and had stated that “he had complete faith in all of the members of the staff and wanted them to be free to have unrecorded interviews with the witnesses.” I never had my suspicion confirmed, but I was quite confident that the chief justice had been briefed by Joe Ball on this debate. Ball’s prominence in California’s legal community meant numerous encounters with the chief justice over the years when Warren had worked as a county prosecutor, state attorney general, and governor. The two had been friends for a long time and Ball could readily get Warren’s ear whenever he wanted.11
The Commission Takes on a Heavier Schedule
The carefully prepared schedule for the taking of commission testimony barely survived its first week. After two days of testimony from Secret Service agents and eyewitnesses, Warren wanted changes made immediately. I needed to respond with a revised schedule promptly, but I had to deal with another urgent matter first. As mentioned earlier, I was available to listen politely to commission critics. This time, Katzenbach wanted to get Thomas Buchanan, an American correspondent for the major French newspaper L’Express, out of his office in a way that would not result in an adverse press article. So he sent him to me.
Buchanan had emigrated to France after he lost his Washington job as a journalist when his Communist Party membership became known. He began writing freelance articles for L’Express about the Kennedy assassination. He claimed that Ruby had known Oswald and loaned him money when he returned from the Soviet Union. He was among those who contended that President Johnson and his Texas oil friends were responsible for Kennedy’s assassination. By March 1964, Buchanan was finishing a major book on the subject. My assignment was to listen attentively to what he said, although free to discuss his views if I wished.12
Buchanan spoke for about ninety minutes. All of his allegations about the assassination were being evaluated in the course of the commission’s investigation, but nothing I said would have dissuaded Buchanan from his theories. His book appeared a few months later and claimed that two gunmen shot at Kennedy, one from the railroad bridge and the other from the depository. He asserted that Oswald knew about the conspiracy but did not fire any shots. Buchanan’s story has significance only because his contentions, along with attacks from Mark Lane and other critics who published during the commission’s work, emphasized to commission members and staff the importance of documenting our findings as thoroughly and persuasively as possible.
When I returned to the office after listening to Buchanan, Redlich “came into my office in quite a hurry and asked me to join them in the Conference Room.” There I found Warren discussing the witness schedule with Joe Ball, David Belin, and Jim Liebeler. He believed that more witnesses “with significant testimony should be called before the Commission as quickly as possible.” He said that the Supreme Court “was currently in recess and he wanted to complete as much of the Commission’s business as possible during the next week and a half.” The chief justice told us that he thought the medical witnesses “were among the most important to be heard.”13
I told the chief justice that “we would make every effort to secure witnesses for next Friday and to change the schedule for the week of March 16 so as to meet his wishes.” When Ball and Belin emphasized the difficulty of the medical testimony and the time necessary to prepare for it, Warren indicated that he was primarily interested in hearing from the autopsy doctors from the Bethesda Naval Hospital. Just when the meeting appeared to be over, McCloy joined the discussion and began asking questions about the investigation. Both he and Warren were particularly concerned about Ruby’s trip (or trips) to Cuba and I told them that we would be discussing this with the CIA in a few days. According to my journal, “They were critical that more had not been done already.” McCloy told us that he “was also interested in having a complete investigation of the Irving gun shop story” and I advised him that the FBI had not yet completed its investigation on this subject.14
McCloy’s “Irving gun shop” reference concerned an allegation that, in early November 1963, Oswald had brought a rifle to the Irving Sports Shop and had a scope mounted on it. Neither the employee who found a work tag with the name “Oswald” on it nor his employer recalled that Oswald had come to the shop for any reason whatsoever. Whereas the work tag indicated that three holes were bored in the rifle, the rifle used by Oswald in the assassination had been manufactured with the scope already mounted and only two holes bored. The commission concluded that the tag was probably not authentic and that Oswald had not visited the shop.15
By this time, Norman Redlich and I had developed a close relationship. He knew that I had assisted Rankin in preparing the schedule of witnesses and wanted me in the meeting to respond to the chief justice’s concerns and preferences. After I listened to the chief justice, I thought that his desire to get more important work done during the Supreme Court recess seemed perfectly reasonable. I knew—as did all the other lawyers at the meeting—that getting the autopsy doctors before the commission early the next week required a substantial change in our schedules. It also assumed that these witnesses would be available on these dates and could be interviewed before their commission appearances. We needed to get together to figure this out.
After the meeting with Warren and McCoy, several lawyers (Redlich, Eisenberg, Ball, Belin, Stern, Liebeler, and Ely) gathered in my office to discuss changes in the witness schedule and a new issue that had arisen during the day’s hearing. Warren had apparently revealed during the hearing his “readiness to receive a clean record and not pursue in very much detail the various inconsistencies.” Ball completely agreed with this approach and Specter thought that “we would have to amend our approach to correspond” with Warren’s. Redlich and Eisenberg took “a strong and articulate contrary view.” No conclusions were reached on this question, as we turned to scheduling Mr. and Mrs. Declan Ford later in the week and exploring the availability of the autopsy doctors for the next week.16
The Fords became swept up in our investigation because they were part of the Russian-speaking community in the Dallas-Fort Worth area that had become acquainted with the Oswalds. Some of this group had been born in the Soviet Union; others were Russian-language teachers; and all were interested in meeting new people who shared this interest. We hoped they might shed light on Oswald’s life and his thinking that might bear on his motive for killing the president. We wanted to find every person who spent time with Oswald after he returned from the Soviet Union and learn everything that might help us shape a more complete assessment of the man. The Fords turned out to be a perfectly ordinary couple who told the commission that they had come to dislike Oswald, but sympathized with his wife because of her difficulties in coping with her new life in the United States.17
With respect to Warren’s interest in a “clean record,” I do not believe that any of our lawyers curtailed their interrogation of a witness in order to avoid any conflicts in testimony. None of us took Warren’s comment as a directive that our investigation—or interrogation of witnesses—should be conducted to avoid full and truthful testimony from all our witnesses that might create inconsistencies in the record. It would have been unprofessional to pursue such an objective and impossible to achieve it; and the record we produced and made public illustrates that we did not do so. It is certainly true, however, that Warren, like a presiding trial judge, urged several of our lawyers on occasion to move on to another area of examination when he thought that a particular subject had been sufficiently explored.
On March 11, the commission questioned Buell Frazier, who worked with Oswald at the depository. Shortly before the assassination, Oswald rented a room in Dallas while his wife and two young daughters lived with Ruth Paine in Irving, about fifteen miles from the depository. Frazier would drive Oswald to Irving on Friday afternoons and back to work in Dallas on Mondays. But on Thursday, November 21, 1963, Oswald altered the routine. He asked Frazier if he could ride home with Frazier that night so he could pick up some curtain rods that he intended to put in his Dallas room. Frazier agreed. When Oswald showed up at Frazier’s for his ride to work Friday morning, Frazier said Oswald carried a long paper bag. Linnie Randle, Frazier’s sister who lived with him, told the commission that she also had seen Oswald with a long package that Friday morning.18
Some members of the staff were concerned by their testimony that “the sack carried was no longer than could fit between a cupped hand and the armpit, whereas the rifle, even when broken down, is some 35 inches, which is considerably longer than could fit in this position.” Notwithstanding these observations, the commission concluded that Oswald was carrying the assassination rifle in this package rather than curtain rods. It relied on testimony to the effect that his Dallas apartment already had curtain rods; the curtain rods in the Paines’ garage remained there on November 22; Oswald never discussed any need for curtain rods with Ruth Paine or his wife; and no curtain rods were discovered at the depository after the assassination. This testimony illustrated the commission’s practice of seeking full and truthful testimony from its witnesses even when it resulted in inconsistencies that the commission would have to evaluate before reaching its factual conclusions.19
After further effort to accommodate Warren’s priorities, Rankin told the commission on March 12 that he had scheduled two days for the testimony of the three autopsy doctors and two full days to take the testimony of Michael and Ruth Paine, who were among those with the most contact with Oswald and his wife while they lived in Texas. A few days later, he confirmed witnesses who would appear during the weeks of March 23 and March 30. Two weeks later, Rankin gave the commission an expanded schedule, which named the additional witnesses to be heard during the week of March 30, including experts from the FBI and outside experts to testify about their examination of the weapons and bullets.20
By early March, Eisenberg had mastered the scientific and technical principles sufficiently to describe the basic issues with respect to ballistics identification. The four principal questions were (1) Were there enough markings on the bullet fragments to justify a firm conclusion as to the gun from which they were fired? (2) Were the FBI Laboratory specialists certain about the origin of any of the bullets or cartridge cases? (3) How many test bullets and cartridges were fired before obtaining the test bullet and cartridge case that the FBI used for comparison purposes? (4) Was either a striagraph or a comparison camera (instruments sometimes used in ballistics identification) used in the course of the FBI’s investigation? If not, why not?21
Eisenberg wanted to explore the ballistics identification with the FBI experts and question them about their reasons for not using comparison photographs as evidence to be presented to fact finders. He recommended that he, Belin, and Ball visit the FBI Laboratory to review the bases for the bureau’s conclusions that the bullets and cartridges that had been recovered were fired from the rifle found on the sixth floor of the depository. He also told Rankin that he believed that another crime laboratory should be asked to perform a ballistics identification test on the fired bullets and cartridge cases. The results of Eisenberg’s work provided an important foundation for the commission’s key findings that the cartridges and bullets had been fired from the rifle owned by Oswald and found in the depository after the assassination.
Friday, March 13, was a quiet day, so I walked over to the Justice Department looking for an opportunity to discuss with Katzenbach the looming question whether the Kennedy family would allow the commission to see the autopsy pictures. Physicians often take photographs during autopsies and the doctors at the Bethesda facility had orderlies take several photos of the dead president. These photos showed his shattered head in grisly fashion, the torn throat, and other autopsy details that, if released, would tarnish the image of a charismatic president. They were quickly locked away to prevent leaks. Technically, the photos belonged to the US Government, and so the “Government” could have allowed the commission access to them. However, out of respect for the Kennedy family’s privacy and desires, President Johnson decided to defer to the family whether the photos should be released. Robert Kennedy, now the head of the family, would have to make that decision. I met briefly with Katzenbach and told him that I learned that the attorney general had told Secret Service inspector Kelley that he would not permit the pictures to be examined. I suggested that the commission might need his help in persuading Robert Kennedy to revisit his reported decision on the matter.22
During my first three months with the commission, I had not had the occasion to visit with the attorney general. I had reported only to Katzenbach and Miller about the commission’s investigation and issues I thought important for them to know about. In the middle of March, however, I was invited to a party at Robert Kennedy’s house in Virginia to celebrate the recent conviction of James Hoffa for obstruction of justice. As Miller’s deputy, I had worked on aspects of the Hoffa cases and was proud of the terrific lawyers in the criminal division who had worked so hard to achieve this result.
I knew most of the roughly one hundred invitees to this celebratory cocktail party and buffet supper. After dinner the lawyers who had handled the prosecution in Chattanooga were singled out for compliments and applause. On behalf of this group, Walter Sheridan, a very talented investigator who had worked for Kennedy before he became attorney general, gave Kennedy “a leather-bound book containing the jury verdict and signatures.” Kennedy seemed very much a part of the evening and comfortable “in the midst of a group of men who have worked so hard toward goals which he shares.” In accepting the gift,
he spoke shortly and very sensitively of his concern that unless Hoffa had been convicted the Teamsters Union would have developed into a political and economic force whose power would have exceeded that of the federal government. In speaking of the group and thanking everybody he spoke humorously of the times when Walt would get on the phone and advise him what the next legal step should be and he always told him that he and Walt should go get themselves a couple of lawyers to advise them. During the course of his remarks the Attorney General made reference to “The President” looking down on this effort and being a part of it and it was certainly very clear to the group that he was speaking of his brother. This, plus the sight of the Attorney General by himself looking over the notebook of signatures, gave a poignant and emotional tone to the evening which it is hard to forget23
While I was enjoying this celebratory party, the commission’s work continued unabated. In preparation for the appearance of the autopsy doctors before the commission, Specter and Ball on March 13 interviewed doctors James Humes, J. Thornton Boswell, and Pierre Finck from the Bethesda Naval Hospital. When Specter told them that they would have to testify before the commission without being able to illustrate and explain the autopsy photographs and X-rays, they offered to have some sketches made of the wounds on the president’s body. On March 16, the doctors testified using three drawings made by a hospital corpsman who worked as an illustrator at the Naval Medical School. These were made without access to the X-rays or photos and were based on the verbal descriptions of the autopsy doctors. Unfortunately, as it turned out, the verbal descriptions were no substitute for access to the actual photos and X-rays. The sketches did not accurately locate the wound near the base of the back of the president’s neck and were later used by critics to rebut the commission’s “single-bullet theory.”23
Dr. Humes testified that it would have been helpful if the illustrator had been able to base his work on the actual X-rays and photos. That, Humes said, would have provided the commission with a more accurate and complete understanding of the wounds. Specter, a good prosecutor, craftily used his questioning to lay a foundation for getting at the autopsy photos, which he thought were of critical importance. However, the chief justice, who thought it unlikely the Kennedys would consent to the use of these disturbing photos, asked Humes whether he would change any of his testimony if the X-rays and photos were available in the hearing room. Humes said he would not. Specter later said that if he had known that those rough sketches “would be reproduced in hundreds of books, credited with more precision than was intended, and so closely scrutinized, I would have opposed doing them. But that’s twenty-twenty hindsight.”24
Work Starts in Texas
Although Ruby’s conviction would certainly be appealed, the end of the trial on March 14, with a finding of guilty and death sentence, removed the most important obstacle delaying the commission’s investigation in Dallas. In anticipation of our work there, I contacted Harold Barefoot Sanders, the US Attorney for the Northern District of Texas, which included Dallas, to get his assistance with our Dallas depositions. Jack Miller had been in touch with Sanders since his Texas visit back in November and told me that Sanders would be the key to getting things done effectively in Dallas. A Texan through and through, Sanders’s father also carried the Barefoot name, which memorialized an ancestor’s achievement in traveling from Alabama to Texas without shoes. He went to the University of Texas as an undergraduate and law student, practiced with a law firm in Dallas for ten years, and then won a seat in the Texas Legislature. In 1961 Kennedy appointed Sanders to be US attorney.26
The depositions of about eighty witnesses began during the week of March 16. Rankin estimated that these depositions would take about four weeks. I had been working on the Dallas depositions during the previous two weeks as best I could in light of the many uncertainties. I knew that the lawyers would adjust the schedule to accommodate the facts on the ground after they arrived. Both because of the scope of our planned work in Texas and its expedited schedule, Rankin asked me to go to Dallas to explain the commission’s mission in person to Dallas officials. He wrote letters to be delivered by me, his newly anointed “executive assistant,” a title created for this trip only. The letter to Dallas police chief Jesse Curry, for example, described generally the scope of the proposed depositions, identified the police officers whose testimony we needed, and politely asked for further assistance in providing commission lawyers with papers or other objects from Ruby or his home which were now in the custody of the police department.27
Belin and I left for Dallas on Thursday, March 19, to make the courtesy calls on Dallas officials and to meet with US Attorney Sanders and local representatives of the FBI and the Secret Service. I was depending on Sanders to help us with the necessary arrangements for office space, hearing rooms, and secretaries to accommodate the needs of our lawyers.
An article in the Dallas Times Herald on Thursday reported that I was coming to Dallas with several lawyers from the commission to interview people about the assassination. My travel had, to this point in my life, never been newsworthy. We were the first representatives of the commission to visit Dallas since the assassination and were both curious about the city and apprehensive about our reception.28
Rankin wanted me to consult with Dean Storey in order to avoid, or minimize, any adverse political consequences arising from our visit. As a former dean of Southern Methodist University School of Law in Dallas, Storey knew virtually every lawyer in town, as he’d raised money from most of them. In addition to his serving previously as president of the American Bar Association, Storey had just ended a six-year term as vice chairman of the US Civil Rights Commission. Rankin valued his help.
Ours was one of the most politically sensitive investigations ever conducted by the federal government. We were well aware that local officials and residents were especially concerned about the intentions of the commission. The assassination of Kennedy and the murder of Oswald happened on their turf and resulted in the first president from Texas. Throughout the South in the early 1960s, there was intense distrust of federal authorities in general and Justice Department lawyers in particular, stemming from the school desegregation battles and civil rights protests. No one was more suspicious of federal intrusion in law-enforcement matters than Texans were.
In addition, local citizens were challenged by the widely held view that the political atmosphere in Texas, and the expressed dislike of President Kennedy by many Texans, may have influenced Oswald to assassinate the president. Just a month before President Kennedy’s visit, the US ambassador to the United Nations, Adlai Stevenson, visited Dallas to celebrate UN Day. On the evening of October 24, 1963, he was “jeered, jostled, and spat upon by hostile demonstrators outside the Dallas Memorial Auditorium.” In response to the local, national, and international reactions to this event, Dallas mayor Earle Cabell “called on the city to redeem itself during President Kennedy’s visit.” Throughout November, public officials and media had emphasized the need for Dallas citizens, regardless of their political affiliation, to treat the visiting president with dignity and courtesy.29
The commission’s work program in Dallas now looked like this:
Belin, joined by Ball, would begin interviews on Friday, March 20, of the fourteen witnesses scheduled to appear before the commission during the next week. If this process could not be completed by Monday so that both of them could return to Washington, we agreed that one would remain in Dallas and the other would fly back and participate in the questioning of the witness (or witnesses) before the commission. They planned to return to Dallas about March 31 to take the depositions of approximately twenty-five police officials who participated in the investigation after the assassination.
Specter planned to arrive in Dallas late Thursday or Friday to take the depositions of about twenty doctors and other witnesses who were at Parkland Hospital on the day of the assassination. He hoped to complete the depositions in time to return to Washington to handle the testimony of two of these doctors before the commission. In recent weeks, Specter had assumed the full burden of the work of his team. Frank Adams was still in trial on a long-scheduled matter for his firm and could not assist Specter with these depositions.
Hubert and Griffin were going to concentrate during the week of March 23 on Dallas police officials involved with the security arrangements on the day Ruby killed Oswald. Along with Ball and Belin, they were scheduled to depose Chief Curry and Sheriff Decker the following week. During their second week in Dallas, Hubert and Griffin were going to question witnesses about Ruby’s background and his activities before the assassination.
Liebeler planned to depose persons with information regarding Oswald’s background. He’d be on his own. His senior colleague, Bert Jenner, was tied up in Chicago. Stern and Ely had nearly completed their report to Rankin on how the Dallas police officials had handled Oswald’s civil and legal rights while holding him in custody. If any depositions were required regarding those issues—as seemed likely—Stern, too, would come to Dallas and join in deposing police officials.
On this initial Dallas trip, I spent most of my time in cabs hurrying from office to office, or in government buildings engaged in polite exchanges with local officials. I visited with Dallas mayor J. Erik Jonsson and deputy chief of police Charles Batchelor, who both assured me of complete cooperation. Joined by Ball and Belin, I visited with Roy Truly, superintendent of the Texas School Book Depository, and made arrangements to interview several depository employees.30
After fulfilling these obligations, I finally had a chance to meet Barefoot Sanders in person. Of medium height, with a slim and athletic build, Sanders gave the impression that he could be very efficient when he needed to be, but would rather take the time to put his feet up on the table and get to know you personally. He knew I was close to Jack Miller, which obviously sat well with him. I gave Sanders the schedule of depositions for the next two weeks, thanked him for the space and secretarial arrangements, and told him to call me personally if there were any problems regarding the commission’s work or personnel.
I found Sanders to be a generous, open person very skilled in Texas politics. He had a great sense of humor and certainly spoke the local lingo with gusto. I could call him up, as I had to do many times, for things as mundane as finding a room for our lawyers or locating a court reporter to handle a deposition on short notice. He seemed to know everyone in town. He fronted for us with Texas officials and interpreted for us when we could not understand why they acted as they did.
I told Specter that the agents in charge of both the Secret Service and the FBI had offered their assistance and that he and the other lawyers should make an effort to meet with them. I also asked him (and Leon Hubert) to make certain that a press release went out each day reporting the names of the witnesses who had been deposed.
Jim Lehrer of the Dallas Times Herald (and later a fixture at PBS) published two stories about the commission’s work in Dallas. He won me over with his description of me as “a tall, soft-spoken executive assistant in the department’s criminal division.” Based on our discussion, he reported that at least fifty people in Dallas would be asked to give their depositions. He described the categories of the witnesses, but not their names. I identified the lawyers who would be handling the depositions. He also reported that I had made successful courtesy visits with the deputy chief of police and the mayor.31
Lehrer’s articles squared with what I observed during this short visit to Dallas. Everyone I spoke with in Dallas understood the need for our investigation and none expressed any concern about the commission’s members or their intentions. No one in a position of authority probed to find out exactly what the commission was doing or when its report would be published. To the extent a generalization can capture the city of Dallas in March 1964, I would say that it had recovered from the trauma of November 22, if not fully. If there was any backlash, it was directed at right-wing activists. Otherwise, Dallas seemed to have resumed doing what it did best—supporting the oil industry and enjoying the benefits of economic prosperity.
Even with a full schedule of depositions, commission lawyers found the time to conduct some legwork of their own to verify the testimony of important witnesses. One of the witnesses at the depository stated in an early FBI interview that he had heard the sound of the bolt action of the rifle and the sound of the empty cartridge cases dropping on the floor above him. Belin and Ball tried to determine if that was even possible. Belin stationed himself on the fifth floor of the building with the depository worker interviewed by the FBI, and Ball was at the assassin’s window a floor above with a Secret Service agent who fired a bolt-action rifle using the same type of cartridge cases found after the assassination. Belin stated: “I distinctly heard the operation of the bolt as well as the sound from the dropping of the cartridge cases. The floor seemed to act as a sounding board for the cartridge cases as they hit.”32
When Belin went to the sixth floor to discuss their successful reenactment with the Secret Service agent, Belin was disappointed, and quite frustrated, to learn that the agent had used heavier live ammunition, not empty shells. Belin was unable to arrange for another such experiment until May 9, when he was with three members of the commission—Cooper, Dulles, and McCloy. When empty cartridges were used on this occasion, Belin reported that the sound of the cartridges hitting the floor was very similar to the first test.33
When I returned to the office on March 23 and was catching up on the accumulated workload, Rankin asked me to join him in meeting with Inspector Malley, the FBI liaison to the commission. Malley delivered two complaints from Hoover: (1) commission lawyers were taking depositions of depository employees at the same time the FBI was obtaining their signed statements; and (2) the FBI was reluctant to have its own experts testify on such matters as ballistics when the commission intended to hear from non-FBI experts as well. At Rankin’s request, I responded to Malley’s first point by stating that no depositions were being taken of depository employees at this time; some of them were being interviewed in preparation for their appearance before the commission and others would be deposed later, but only after we got their signed statements from the FBI. On the second issue, Rankin explained that the commission “is under considerable criticism for depending exclusively on the work of the FBI and that [the use of outside experts] is desirable” for both the commission and the bureau. Malley said “he would carry these views back to the Director.”34
Over the next several days, much of my work involved facilitating the taking of testimony before the commission and the depositions in Dallas. The deposition program was going well and we received daily reports from Dallas about the progress being made there. We did receive, however, a complaint from District Attorney Wade about Burt Griffin’s questioning of Sergeant Patrick Dean, a police officer.35
Griffin, who had been a federal prosecutor for two years, did not tolerate what he regarded as evasive or untrue testimony. He was exploring two important issues with Dean. First, Dean made a statement on television within minutes of Ruby’s shooting Oswald that was interpreted as indicating that he saw Ruby enter the basement before the shooting. Two weeks later, the Dallas Times Herald repeated this Dean statement. Because Dean had responsibility for the security arrangements in the basement, this was an important matter. Dean later denied these reports to his department superiors, saying that he had not seen Ruby enter the basement. Second, Dean claimed for the first time in February 1964 that Ruby had said that he was contemplating shooting Oswald on November 22, 1963, two days before he actually did so. However, none of the other officials involved in the Ruby interrogation had heard any such statement. Dean’s testimony on Ruby’s “premeditation,” based on this statement, was critical in the trial of Ruby and, in particular, was relied on to prove the malice required under Texas law to support the death penalty.
Griffin pressed hard to get at the truth on these two issues. At one point, he went off the record and had a conversation with Dean about his responses to Griffin’s questions. After this discussion, Dean complained to Wade that Griffin insinuated he was not testifying truthfully. When Wade’s complaint reached Rankin, he asked Griffin for a written report about the incident. Griffin wrote several memoranda to Rankin and me regarding Wade’s letter, his deposition of Dean, and the basis for his concerns about Dean’s truthfulness. Griffin proposed more testimony on the two areas of concern. He also provided a memorandum of his twenty-minute off-the-record interview of Dean.
In his memo, Griffin stated that during his off-the-record discussion with Dean he told the policeman he didn’t believe aspects of his testimony about Ruby’s entry into the basement and Ruby’s statement on November 22 that he planned to kill Oswald. Griffin emphasized the importance of the commission’s investigation and told Dean that “if he had a statement to make to the commission which was more truthful than the one which he made that every effort would be made to give him the kind of protection that was necessary in order to permit him to correct that statement.”36
Griffin reported that Dean insisted that he was telling the truth and that he could not understand why Griffin felt otherwise. Griffin responded that he had read enough of the relevant file to convince him that Dean hadn’t told the truth, but would not provide any fuller explanation for his concerns. Dean ended the discussion asserting that he had been truthful.
In response to Wade’s specific complaints, Griffin told Rankin that he had not called Dean a liar, but conceded that he had told Dean that he believed that Dean was not telling the truth. Griffin also denied that he had told Dean that he was going to file perjury charges against him and that Dean was not entitled to a lawyer because he had waived that right. On this latter point, Griffin told Rankin that it was his customary practice to advise any witness whose deposition he was taking that the witness was entitled to counsel. He believes he may have suggested that, if Dean elected to change his testimony in the future, he might seek the advice of a lawyer so that his rights in the matter would be fully protected.37
Of the two Dean statements that Griffin was challenging, he recognized that the statement regarding Ruby’s premeditation was, if false, the more reprehensible of the two, because the finding of premeditation in the Ruby trial was based largely on Dean’s testimony. Griffin was dubious about Dean’s recollection of a premeditation statement by Ruby on November 22 because Dean had never mentioned it before his February 18 report to Chief Curry. Dean had several opportunities to report Ruby’s incriminating statement before he did so—in his report to Curry on November 26, during an FBI interview on December 2, in another report to Curry on December 8, in another FBI interview on December 10, and during a long television interview on November 24. In addition, Dean consistently stated that Dallas Secret Service chief Forrest Sorrels was present on November 22 when Ruby allegedly made this statement. However, Sorrels maintained and later testified before the commission that he did not recall such a statement by Ruby and that, if it was made, it was not while Sorrels was in the room.38
In his report to Rankin, Griffin discussed his brief conversation with Deputy Chief of Police Batchelor. Griffin told Rankin that he had emphasized in this conversation Dean’s statement regarding Ruby’s entrance into the basement rather than the more important statement about Ruby’s intention to kill Oswald. He did not want to highlight this other statement because it might affect the recent conviction of Ruby. Even so, Griffin reported to Rankin that “Batchelor indicated by his manner of speaking that this was his primary concern.”39
Dean’s delay for about three months in reporting Ruby’s alleged premeditation and the lack of corroboration by Sorrels or any other person certainly supported Griffin’s concern that Dean was not telling the truth on this critical issue. I thought his conduct was appropriate under the circumstances and that no punishment of any kind was warranted. Warren entered the picture during Dean’s later appearance before the commission, when he said “no member of our staff has the right to tell a witness that he is lying or that he is testifying falsely. That is not his business.” Contrary to at least one published report, Rankin did not remove Griffin from the Dallas investigation and assign him to purgatory in our Washington office.40
Strange as it may seem, Ruby regarded Dean as one of his many friends in the Dallas Police Department. After his conviction and death sentence in part because of Dean’s testimony, Ruby invited Dean to visit with him in custody and gave him a copy of the Warren Commission report with a fond inscription. Reading about the trial of Ruby left me with two firm convictions: he was very poorly represented at trial and he was mentally and emotionally impaired in a way that was not fairly considered at the time. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ultimately reversed Ruby’s conviction because the alleged statement by Ruby testified to by Dean was inadmissible under Texas law.41
Shaping a Report to the Nation
Very early on, I focused on the structure and substance of the commission’s report. I had two cardinal rules. First, every conclusion in the report would be based on facts developed or checked independently through our own efforts. Second, every fact in the report would be supported by sworn testimony, authenticated documents and physical exhibits, or verified scientific and technical work.
Al Goldberg, our historian, prepared the first draft outline of the report and circulated it on March 14. Goldberg emphasized that the report should use simple, straightforward language, and his draft outline provided a good start. Goldberg had consistently advocated a narrative approach and suggested as well that the report should include additional matters of a historical nature. We had general agreement that a narrative of the events from November 22 through November 24 should be included near the beginning of the report. Some lawyers opposed any discussion of earlier assassinations because it might suggest to the reader (or critic) that the commission had concluded that Oswald was a disturbed person, as had been the case in previous presidential assassinations in the United States. We agreed that our discussion of the key issues should be sufficiently well documented to address other publicized hypotheses regarding the assassination. However, the staff recognized the need for an appendix to the report dealing specifically with the multiple rumors and allegations circulating about our investigation.
Rankin asked the lawyers to comment on the Goldberg draft and reassured them that they would have the prime responsibility for the report’s sections dealing with their areas. I had the occasion to discuss the proposed report with Rankin one evening in late March—one of several such private sessions where he and I could reflect on what we were doing and where we were going, after a day full of meetings, hearings, telephone calls, and correspondence. During these sessions, he would often tell me more about his conversations with the chief justice or other commission members. In turn, I would comment about any current issues with the staff or investigative agencies. On this occasion, I told him that I thought “we were underestimating our capabilities to produce a complete and documented report” and expressed my “strong conviction that we should publish as much material as possible” simultaneously with our report. Rankin responded favorably to these suggestions and agreed that we should discuss them at our next staff meeting.42
As the comments on Goldberg’s draft came in over the next two weeks, Rankin asked Redlich and me to produce a revised outline incorporating the best suggestions we received. We had not turned to this task by the morning after my evening conversation with Rankin, when Rankin told us that the chief justice had asked for an outline of the report and would be arriving in the afternoon to get it. I told Rankin that we “were not prepared” to give Warren a draft outline and he said “we would have to in any event.” So Redlich and I went off to produce a draft outline, worked for three or four hours, and completed a draft dated March 31, 1964, which we gave to the chief justice that afternoon with some trepidation. This experience reflected another consistent aspect of the commission’s work: if the chief justice wanted a draft outline of the report—or anything else—we would move heaven and earth to get it for him.43
Our draft outline was circulated to the staff and discussed at a meeting a few days later. Following up on our earlier conversation, Rankin proposed that the transcripts of testimony before the commission and accompanying exhibits should be published at the same time as the commission report. After some debate, we agreed that this commitment to publish should extend also to our deposition transcripts. Rankin asked that Redlich and I prepare an assignment sheet indicating which lawyers were to be responsible for the review of particular transcripts.44
Oswald’s Foreign Activities Engage the CIA
During March, the Coleman/Slawson team made significant headway in getting information from the Central Intelligence Agency and the State Department about Oswald’s activities in Russia and Mexico. To determine whether there was a foreign conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy, we needed to explore whether Oswald was an agent of the Soviet Union or Cuba, and whether Marina Oswald was telling the truth about the life she and her husband had in Russia.
Allen Dulles, Rankin, and I had met Richard Helms, the CIA’s deputy director for plans, and two of his associates on January 14. On a personal level, I recall the obvious respect and affection that the agency officials had for Dulles, a former director. Rankin told Helms that the commission believed a request should be made to the Soviet Union soliciting information regarding Oswald’s activities there. In addition, he asked for as much information as possible from CIA sources about Oswald’s activities in the Soviet Union and Mexico.45
At the time, we knew the general outline of Oswald’s nearly three years in the Soviet Union, his encounters with the US embassy, his work assignment in Minsk, and his living quarters. We had begun to get additional information about his life there from Marina Oswald’s first appearance before the commission. We were trying to find out as much detail as possible about his encounters with Soviet officials, the nature of his work there, his recreational activities, and his associates. We hoped this information would contribute to our making a reasonable assessment of whether he had ever been a Soviet agent.
Helms said the CIA was preparing a report about Oswald based on the agency’s files, but advised us that it would be limited in scope because of restrictions on the CIA’s jurisdiction over Americans abroad. He did, however, offer help in the preparation of questions to the Soviet Union. We agreed to obtain security clearances for the commission lawyers working in this area and to provide the CIA with investigative reports obtained from other agencies. In return, the CIA would provide its completed report on Oswald to the commission as soon as possible and help in preparing questions for Marina Oswald’s appearance before the commission. After this meeting, the CIA provided us with a proposed list of questions for the Soviet Union. It also provided a detailed chronology of Oswald’s stay in the Soviet Union and an alphabetical list of people there who were known to or mentioned by Oswald or his wife.46
We knew relatively little about Oswald’s activities in Mexico when we first met with the CIA. He had gone to Mexico City on September 26, 1963, by bus from Houston and came back to Texas, again by bus, on October 3. We knew he wanted a visa to enter Cuba, but whether his final destination was the Soviet Union or Cuba itself was uncertain. In late January, the CIA provided us with a report setting out what they knew about his trip to Mexico. We were especially interested in any transcript, notes, or other recording of the interview of Silvia Duran by Mexican officials. She worked at the Cuban consulate in Mexico City, and Oswald had approached her in his effort to secure a visa from the Cuban Government to transit Cuba, ostensibly on the way to Moscow. At our request, the CIA provided the commission with the translations (from the Spanish) of interviews conducted by the Mexican police of Silvia Duran and her husband.47
The commission had a second objective in dealing with the CIA, which was to determine how forthcoming the agency had been with other federal agencies before the assassination. Sam Stern needed to understand what the FBI, Secret Service, and CIA knew (and were doing) about Oswald before the assassination, as well as their intelligence capabilities and their policies on inter-agency sharing of information. On Stern’s recommendation, Rankin in February asked the CIA for a copy of the contents of the CIA file on Oswald as of November 22, 1963, and for a report of the dissemination, if any, of those materials to other federal agencies before that date.48
Coleman and Slawson thought carefully about the objectives and problems in their assignment. They recognized the uncertainty regarding the veracity and motivation of any Soviet response to questions from the United States, but they still hoped to explore some of the unresolved questions about Oswald’s stay in the Soviet Union. Did Oswald get preferential treatment in the Soviet Union and, if so, why? Why did the Soviets not grant him citizenship despite his strong urging and the obvious propaganda advantage resulting from such “full asylum”?49
In late February, Coleman and Slawson provided Rankin with an interim report on their investigation of Oswald’s trip to the Soviet Union, his stay there, and his return to the United States. They discussed three major issues: (1) Oswald’s application for a passport in 1959 and his trip to Russia, (2) his actions at the US embassy renouncing his American citizenship, and (3) the reissuance of his US passport and return in 1962 to the United States with his wife and daughter. Coleman and Slawson wanted more information from the State Department about its contacts with Oswald. They also wanted State to use its diplomatic channels to get information from the Soviet Union. Slawson produced a draft request to State regarding its activities involving Oswald and a proposed letter to State Secretary Rusk from Warren outlining the information needed from the Soviet Union.50
State responded with a draft letter to the Soviets for our review, but Slawson and I wanted more specific information about Oswald’s stay in the Soviet Union. In particular, Slawson proposed seeking more information about any physical and mental examinations of Oswald and his wife, and records regarding Oswald’s entry into, and exit from, the Soviet Union. I suggested we get information about Oswald’s places of employment and residences in the Soviet Union and any statements from Soviet citizens who knew him. The proposed letter from the chief justice to Rusk incorporated our suggestions, and they were accepted by State. Rusk delivered the letter to the Soviet ambassador on March 11.51
Rankin subsequently submitted a series of questions prepared by Slawson to State, some of which sought to take advantage of the department’s expertise in evaluating Oswald’s life in the Soviet Union. For example, we asked State to advise us whether resident foreigners in the Soviet Union could travel (as Oswald did) from Minsk to Moscow without permission from Soviet authorities. Others related to the way that State and the Immigration and Naturalization Service handled the various permissions Oswald and Marina needed. Slawson also wanted to know how State and other federal agencies communicated with each other about Oswald.52
An important addition to the commission’s work in this area came at the end of February, when the FBI delivered a memorandum containing information about Oswald from Yuri Ivanovich Nosenko, a recent defector from the Soviet Union. Nosenko described himself as a high official in the counterintelligence division of the KGB, the Soviet secret police. He said he had supervised the examination and treatment of Lee Harvey Oswald for the KGB when Oswald first entered Russia in 1959. He said that he also reexamined Oswald’s file after the assassination to determine whether he had ever been used by the KGB as an agent. Nosenko said flatly that the KGB at no time used Oswald as an agent.53
The bureau said it planned to interview Nosenko further “in an attempt to determine the accuracy of his statements. He is, of course, in the custody of the Central Intelligence Agency and our interviews will be contingent on other assessments of his time.” The FBI cautioned that Nosenko’s “reliability has not as yet been established.” Nosenko’s claim of firsthand knowledge about Oswald’s stay in the Soviet Union could not be used by the commission until the CIA delivered its final assessment whether Nosenko was a real defector or a double agent. Some within the CIA maintained that Nosenko was a fraud, sent by the Soviet intelligence service to confound the CIA. Others in the CIA and apparently most in the FBI thought that Nosenko was genuine. However, the commission well understood what would happen if it relied on Nosenko’s statements and the CIA subsequently concluded he was a double agent. The veracity of Nosenko’s information became the subject of a multi-year controversy within the CIA and between the CIA and the FBI far exceeding the life of the commission.54
In addition to the conspiracy possibility raised by Oswald’s connections to Russia, the commission had to investigate Oswald’s time in Mexico and his connections to Cuba. Coleman and Slawson wanted (1) further information regarding the activities of the American embassy in Mexico City after the assassination, (2) information regarding investigative work of the Mexican authorities regarding Oswald, (3) permission from Mexican authorities to use their investigative materials in our final report, (4) additional investigative activity by Mexican authorities, (5) further investigative activities by American government agencies abroad, and (6) meetings in Mexico City to discuss the matter with Mexican authorities and US investigative agencies.55
We met with CIA representatives on March 12 to discuss Nosenko and these questions about Mexico. As to Nosenko, all they would tell us was that the commission should “await further developments.” With respect to Mexico, Helms, who attended along with CIA officials David Murphy and Raymond Rocca, suggested that it might be useful for commission representatives to go to Mexico because both the CIA and FBI had agents “on the ground” there. We told the CIA officials that the commission needed to address rumors or allegations that Oswald was an agent of the CIA. Helms proposed several different ways of demonstrating that Oswald was not their agent. These included affidavits from the responsible officials, testimony of CIA officials before the commission, and permitting access by commission staff to whatever CIA files they regarded as necessary to review. We pursued all of these avenues over the following months.56
Moving to what I assumed would be a contentious subject, we discussed the failure of the CIA to comply fully with some of the commission’s recent inquiries regarding pre-assassination documents in the CIA files on Oswald. Helms, one of the most fluent and self-confident government officials I ever met, exhibited not the slightest embarrassment at our complaint about his agency’s failure to comply fully with our request. He smoothly explained that the agency had not provided materials that utilized confidential communication techniques and revealed confidential sources. I responded that the commission did not need to know these confidential aspects, but it certainly needed more than the summaries provided by the earlier CIA memorandum. After some discussion, we reached a compromise that required the CIA to provide the commission with a paraphrase of any message or other writing requested by the commission, the original version of which would reveal a confidential source or confidential communications technique, and the commission staff would be permitted to review the actual messages to ensure that the paraphrases were complete and accurate.57
Having met with CIA representatives on several occasions over the past two months, I was impressed with their competence and apparent willingness to cooperate with the commission. They were always polite, seemingly accommodating when we requested information, and respectful of the commission’s obligation to conduct a thorough investigation of the assassination. I thought it might be “because they do not have any special axe to grind” in our investigation. As it turned out, I could not have been more wrong. The CIA had huge interests at stake in our efforts. As was revealed by congressional investigations in 1975–76, they were determined to keep extremely important information from the commission. We never knew that, among other things, the agency had been busying itself with various plots to assassinate Castro during 1960–63, including one plan scheduled to be implemented on November 22, 1963. Helms knew all about this as he looked at me across the table and promised full cooperation in providing any information that might be relevant to our work.58
Still, not everyone in the agency was obstructing us. None of the other CIA officials who worked with us was aware of these covert plans. Slawson developed a very close relationship with Ray Rocca, the key liaison CIA official assigned to the commission, and felt that he could communicate freely with him, make informal oral requests for assistance, and depend on his integrity in dealing with the commission.59
The next meeting with the CIA took place two weeks later at the agency headquarters and involved Stern, Slawson, and me. Stern went off with Rocca to review certain CIA files from which materials had been supplied to the commission. Slawson and I discussed the Mexican aspects of our investigation with Helms and Jack Whitten, who worked for Helms. Neither of them thought that “anything of importance could be developed at this time in Mexico but that representatives of the Commission should probably make the trip to satisfy themselves as to the scope of the investigation already conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Mexican officials.” They made it clear that the primary US agency responsible for the investigation in Mexico was the FBI—not the CIA.60
When Stern examined the files of the CIA, he found two sets of documents that had not been previously provided the commission. The first set consisted of cable reports from the CIA station in Mexico on November 22 and 23, 1963, relating to photographs of a person who had visited the Cuban and Soviet Embassies in Mexico City during October and November 1963, and reports on those cables furnished on November 23 by the CIA to the Secret Service. The second set of materials included a cable of October 10, 1963, from the CIA station in Mexico City to CIA headquarters reporting on the Oswald contact at the Soviet embassy, and an October 10 message from CIA headquarters to the Mexico City station of background information on Oswald. Although the CIA had not provided these documents to the commission, Stern reported that the CIA had provided accurate summaries of both sets of materials. It appeared that the compromise was working.61
Presidential Protection: Impasse with the Treasury Department
As of late February we had reached an impasse with the Treasury Department. The commission’s last letter to Treasury advised Secretary Dillon that the commission was interested in almost everything relevant to presidential protection, future planning as well as evaluation of the performance of the Secret Service in Dallas, and would accept no limitations on the commission’s use of the materials received from the department. The secretary had suggested taking the matter to the president, and there it stood. We urgently needed some resolution of the matter.
Treasury refused to make available materials relating to security precautions until it received acceptable assurances regarding the use of this material in any report by the commission. Rankin, Stern, and I had a meeting scheduled for Friday afternoon, March 6, with Treasury representatives and we got together in the morning to explore a way out of this impasse. Each of the possible approaches to the problem seemed flawed in some important respect.62 From the staff point of view, the Secret Service appeared to be neither alert nor careful in protecting the president. Their personnel probably were not very well trained; and they didn’t seem to have current technology to use. We did not believe they could obtain significant intelligence on threats to the president through their own resources or that they got much cooperation or respect from other law enforcement or intelligence agencies. But we needed facts to support any final judgments, and it seemed like we were not going to get them readily.
Our discussion with Rankin revealed a fundamental disagreement between the staff and the chief justice. We were convinced that the commission could not make any useful recommendations without detailed information about existing Secret Service procedures. For example, what were the duties of the agent riding in the front seat of the presidential vehicle? What were the procedures for checking buildings along the motorcade route? But Rankin told us that the chief justice did not think that the commission or the staff should have access to precisely this type of detailed information. We were frustrated, to say the least, and wondered whether in this instance a majority of the members would disagree with Warren. It also prompted our curiosity as to why Warren had been reluctant to accept the limitations on our access and use of Treasury Department materials as urged by that department, when he shared their concerns about confidentiality.
The meeting in the afternoon with Treasury Department representatives was almost as frustrating. We met with Robert Carswell, special assistant to Secretary Dillon, and G. d’Andelot Belin, the department’s general counsel. Carswell, who had come to Treasury from a major New York law firm, was a very accomplished practitioner—careful, methodical, and protective of his client. With similar backgrounds in law practice, Carswell and Stern had established a good professional relationship over the previous several weeks. Carswell insisted on establishing procedures to limit the publication of Secret Service material in the commission’s report and that these procedures had to be approved by the president. He stated that his department had no idea how to respond to the commission’s last letter and thought that the issues should be resolved now. Rankin agreed that Treasury should consult with the president before making any materials available to the commission.63
Carswell told us that the most important single document was the report submitted by Secret Service chief Rowley to Dillon after the assassination. He indicated that this report identified certain deficiencies in the agency’s practices and made recommendations for change. Rankin said he did not want Rowley’s report in the commission’s public records, but that it would be appropriate for Stern to read the report and make written notes for the commission’s use. Carswell seemed amenable to this approach, subject to the president’s approval.64
I briefly described this situation to Katzenbach when I visited him on Monday, March 9. He believed that “this was a needless problem which should be resolved without too great difficulty.” He suggested that I might wish to discuss it with McCloy—a prescient comment as it turned out. That is exactly what happened when I returned to the commission’s office that afternoon, where the chief justice was discussing the commission’s schedule with several of our lawyers. McCloy soon joined the meeting.65
McCloy inquired about the discussions between the commission and the Treasury Department, mentioning that he had just come from a meeting with Secretary Dillon. The chief justice responded that “so far as he knew the matter was settled” and that Stern was getting information informally from Treasury. I told them both that this was not the case and reviewed briefly the Friday meeting with Treasury representatives and the impasse with respect to the commission’s access to Secret Service materials. Warren expressed his views quite emphatically, stating that the commission had no need to examine any detailed information regarding the operations and procedures of the Secret Service. At that point he left the room to take a telephone call.65
McCloy asked for my views about the commission’s responsibilities in the area of presidential protection. I made a strong statement on the subject—probably more vigorous than it would have been if Warren were in the room—and said that my views were generally shared by the staff. In particular: “I emphasized the amount of time that had already passed without any work being done in this area, the need to gain access to detailed information before any recommendations could be made, and the fact that the Commission is missing a great and unique opportunity to make a substantial contribution in the field of security precautions.” I also referred to the Rowley report to the Treasury secretary, which I said (based on our discussions with Treasury) contained “detailed criticism of Secret Service operations and proposed certain recommendations for improvements in the areas of interest to the Commission.”67
By this point, Warren had returned to the meeting and claimed that this was the first time he had ever heard of this report. He was “obviously disconcerted that it had not been submitted to the Commission.” While the rest of us sat quietly, McCloy and Warren “engaged in a heated discussion.” McCloy argued that the commission “should get access to all the relevant materials from Secret Service and then agree to consult with them regarding publication of these prior to the final report.” Any debate on this matter, he said, “could be resolved by the President at the appropriate time.” Warren responded that “this would put the President on the spot and that if he decided not to release any of this material he would be accused of covering up the investigation of the assassination.” His other major concern was that “if detailed information was made known to members of the Commission and staff they would be primary suspects in the event of any leak which resulted in another assassination attempt.” The meeting ended with no resolution.68
John McCloy and I had several intense conversations during my work with the commission. McCloy presented an interesting mix of strong personality, acute intelligence, and unusually broad experience. I never could anticipate where he might wind up on any given issue. McCloy literally came from another century; he was born in 1895 and was nearly seventy years old when he served on the commission. He fought in World War I as a second lieutenant and served as an assistant secretary of War during World War II. A Harvard-educated lawyer, McCloy became president of the World Bank, which had been created at the Bretton Woods Conference in 1944. Then he served as high commissioner for Germany and witnessed the creation of the Federal Republic of Germany, commonly known as West Germany. Following that, he served as chairman of the Chase Manhattan Bank, and at the time he joined the commission, he was chairman of the Ford Foundation. McCloy certainly did not hesitate to tangle with the chief justice. He always gave me the impression of wanting to hear all the details—warts and all—about issues of interest to him.
Presidential protection was one of those issues. When he gave me the opportunity at this meeting, I was eager to express my frustration with the situation while the chief justice was out of the room. In his “heated discussion” with Warren, McCloy embraced my main points and gave every impression that he would try within the commission to overrule the chief justice on this critical question of access to Treasury Department documents. Unfortunately, McCloy was not present at the next meeting, where Warren explained his views to Treasury representatives.
Two days later, the chief justice met with Carswell, representing Secretary Dillon, and Chief Rowley. Rankin, Stern, and I attended the meeting, which was scheduled at Warren’s request so that he could personally tell Treasury representatives what he told McCloy at the last meeting. According to my journal, “It was a unique meeting in that I remained quiet from beginning to end. This proved to be a wise course of action.”69
Warren opened with a fifteen-minute presentation in which he stated where he stood on commission’s role in evaluating presidential protection. He emphasized his lack of interest in learning any details regarding Secret Service policies and procedures and his concern for putting the president on the spot. As he stated his position, Chief Rowley “could do nothing but agree enthusiastically,” offering irrelevant digressions “seemingly designed to prove to the Chief Justice the wisdom of his action.” For example, Rowley referred to the recent infiltration of “syndicates” into counterfeiting “and suggested that this was another reason why the Commission should not become informed regarding his operations.”70
Carswell tried to get the meeting back on a track where it might accomplish something of value to both his client and the commission, but succeeded only in getting his boss, Secretary Dillon, and McCloy “into greater disfavor” with Warren. When it became clear that the chief justice was offended that another commission member had met with Secretary Dillon, Carswell explained that the March 9 meeting between Dillon and McCloy had been at the secretary’s request. Carswell suggested that the Secret Service procedures and issues related to November 22 in Dallas “could be isolated from the procedures and issues looking to the improvement in the operations of the Secret Service.” Warren seized on this distinction and the meeting ended with an agreement that Stern would work with Carswell to prepare a series of questions and answers that would give the commission the information it needed to know, but would respect Treasury’s security concerns about future Secret Service policies and procedures.71
I was extremely discouraged by this outcome. Basically, it made the commission “a public relations adjunct to the Treasury” and made it impossible for us “to do any significant work in this field.” When I discussed the meeting later with Rankin, he characteristically had a more optimistic view. We agreed (as we had to) that any progress was welcome and that the question-and-answer routine might serve to (1) supply the commission with information of value and (2) highlight the issues more sharply so that they might be discussed further. Rankin hadn’t given up in this area and for this I was grateful.72
Stern submitted the first seventeen questions for the Secret Service on March 24. The four areas covered were (1) protective research, (2) liaison activities, (3) particular protective measures, and (4) supervision of the Secret Service. Rankin told the Secret Service: “Although some of the questions are, in form, susceptible of a single affirmative or negative response, the commission would appreciate instead a reasoned response to each question, in reasonable detail and with any substantiating materials as seem appropriate.” We expected Treasury would continue to slow-walk our requests, and they did. We didn’t hear much from them again until we summoned their officials to testify in late April.73
More Troubles with the FBI
Our relationships with the FBI were not improving. Rankin submitted five pages of questions to the FBI in late March as part of the commission’s inquiry into what various law enforcement agencies knew of Oswald before the assassination. The questions emerged from the staff’s review of reports from the FBI and other government agencies. Rankin noted politely that the commission “would appreciate … a reasoned response to each question, in reasonable detail, and with such substantiating materials as seem appropriate.” We anticipated that this detailed letter might not be warmly received at the FBI and Rankin undertook to deliver it personally to Malley.74
I don’t know how Malley reacted to the letter, but his FBI superiors were quite upset with it. The FBI frequently considered the commission’s investigative requests to be oppressive and much too detailed, and one bureau official had this to say about this particular letter:
While complimenting the Bureau for its cooperation, the President’s Commission … forwarded what purports to be 30 questions (by actual count there are 52 as some of the enumerated questions have more than one part) to which they request a reasoned response in reasonable detail and with such substantiating materials as seem appropriate. The questions are those of a cross-examining attorney and it is evident that this is a cross-examination of the FBI or a part of it in the case of the assassination of President Kennedy.
This FBI official got it exactly right. The commission staff was doing precisely what Senator Russell in December had urged—to act as a “devil’s advocate” who “would take this FBI report and this CIA report and go through it and analyze every contradiction and every soft spot in it, just as if he were prosecuting them or planning to prosecute.…”75
Notwithstanding their complaint about the letter, the FBI responded promptly in a detailed two-page letter with fifteen pages of answers to the commission’s questions.76 Hoover expressed his certainty about the only conclusion the commission could reach:
At the outset, I wish to emphasize that the facts available to the FBI concerning Lee Harvey Oswald prior to the assassination did not indicate in any way that he was, or would be, a threat to President Kennedy; nor were they such as to suggest that the FBI should inform the Secret Service of his presence in Dallas or his employment at the Texas School Book Depository.77
Hoover was not telling the truth. Immediately after the assassination, Hoover ordered an investigation to identify any deficiencies in the handling of the Oswald case. On December 10, he received a report from Assistant Director James Gale, which stated that there were a number of failures in the Oswald security case. The report concluded: “Oswald should have been on the Security Index; his wife should have been interviewed before the assassination, and investigation intensified—not held in abeyance—after Oswald contacted Soviet Embassy in Mexico.”78 Gale recommended that seventeen FBI employees be censured or placed on probation for “shortcomings in connection with the investigation of Oswald prior to the assassination” and that this action be taken promptly despite the possibility that the Warren Commission might learn about it during the commission’s existence.79
Other FBI officials took the contrary position. Assistant Director Cartha DeLoach suggested that disciplinary action be deferred until the commission’s findings were made public. Hoover did not agree and implemented Gale’s recommendations on the same day he received the report, personally ordering that all seventeen FBI officials who had been involved in the FBI’s dealings with Oswald before the assassination be disciplined. His view was that “such gross incompetency cannot be overlooked nor administrative action postponed.”80
Assistant Director Alan Belmont suggested in an addendum to Gale’s report that it was significant that all of the agents, supervisors, and officials who had considered the issue had concluded that Oswald did not meet the criteria for the Security Index. Under these circumstances Belmont proposed that, rather than discipline the seventeen individuals, the criteria should be changed, as recommended by Gale.81 Hoover rejected this suggestion with a handwritten notation next to Belmont’s addendum: “They were worse than mistaken. Certainly no one in full possession of all his faculties can claim Oswald didn’t fall within this criteria.” Hoover’s deliberate false statement to the commission did not come to light until ten years later, after Hoover died, when a congressional committee investigated the FBI’s failures in connection with the assassination of Kennedy.82
After a month full of proposals for more testimony and investigative requests, we were surprised to learn from an Associated Press story at the end of March that our investigation was almost over. The story ran in several papers around the country and stated, “The end is in sight so far as questioning witnesses and examining other evidence is concerned, it was reported, but writing the definitive report is expected to be a long job after the hearings close.” The story referred to the commission’s interest in trying to dispel the many rumors of various kinds of conspiracy, but “the case against Oswald lacks a motive explicable by the workings of an ordinary mind.” It is hard to believe that the source of this story was anyone on the commission or the staff in light of our intensified activities in March and their anticipated continuation for the next several months. As was true of other such “leaked” stories about the commission in the future, we never were able to ascertain who the source was.83
Looking toward April, it was apparent that the commission had major unresolved issues with the FBI, Treasury, and the CIA and a full docket of commission witnesses and depositions. We decided to send a team to Mexico to look into Oswald’s activities there as suggested by Helms, and I planned to be on it.