As my Russian improves I become increasingly conscious of just what sort of a society I live in. Mass gymnastics, complusory afterwork meeting, usually political information meeting. Complusory attendance at lectures and the sending of the entire shop collective (except me) to pick potatoes on a Sunday, at a state collective farm: A "patroict duty" to bring in the harvest. The opions of the workers (unvoiced) are that its a great pain in the neck: they don't seem to be esspicialy enthusiastic about any of the "collective" duties a natural feeling.

I am starting to reconsider my disire about staying the work is drab the money I get has nowhere to be spent. No night clubs or bowling allys no places of recreation acept the trade union dances I have have had enough.

Lieutenant John E. Donovan was Lee's commanding officer at El Toro. He recalled that Lee was of "higher intelligence" than the average enlisted man and was seventh in his class of thirty radar operators. "Lee Harvey Oswald was dependable and very calm under periods of pressure," Donovan recalled. "He read most of the time, histories, magazines, books on government and a Russian newspaper he used to get. He spent a lot of time studying the Russian language. There were no pocketbooks or comics for him."

Donovan called Lee "an officer-baiter" and a troublemaker. "He would ask officers to explain some obscure situation in foreign affairs, just to show off his superior knowledge. He seemed to be in revolt against any kind of authority." Donovan explained that Lee played end on the squadron football team until he was dismissed "because he kept talking back in the huddle." The quarterback was a captain.

Oswald asked, "What do you think about Communism?" "I replied I didn't think too much of Communism" and he said, "Well, I think the best religion is Communism." And I got the impression at the time... he was playing the galleries... he said it very gently. He didn't seem to be a glassy-eyed fanatic by any means... I did know at the time he was learning the Russian language. I knew he was subscribing to Pravda... All of this I took to be a sign of his interest in the subject, and not as a sign of any active commitment to the Communist ends... I didn't feel there was any rabid devotion... His shoes were always unshined... He walked around with the bill of his cap down over his eyes... so he wouldn't have to look at anything around him... to blot out the military... It was well-known in the outfit that... Oswald had Communist sympathies ... Master Sergeant Spar, our section chief, jumped up on a fender one day and said, "All right, everybody gather around," and Oswald said in a very thick Russian accent, "Ah ha, collective farm lecture," in a very delighted tone. This brought him laughs at the time...

Every now and then we had to give up our Saturday morning liberty to go march in one of those parades ... (and) to look forward to a morning of standing out in the hot sun and marching around, was irritable. So, we were involved at the moment in a "hurry up and wait" routine... waiting at the moment... sitting. Oswald and I happened to be sitting next to each other on a log... he turned to me and said something about the stupidity of the parade... and I said, I believe my words were, "Well, come the revolution you will change all that." At which time he looked at me like a betrayed Caesar and screamed, screamed definitely, "Not you too, Thornley." And I remember his voice cracked as he put his hands in his pockets, pulled his hat down over his eyes and walked away... and sat down someplace else alone... and I never said anything to him again and he never said anything to me again. This happened with many people, this reaction of Oswald's and therefore he had few friends... He seemed to guard against developing real close friendships.

That I served in the United States Marine Corps from approximately October, 1956, to October, 1959. I served with Lee Harvey Oswald in MACS-9 at the Lighter Than Air Station at Santa Anna, California. Part of the time I was stationed at Santa Anna, I was married and therefore during that time lived off the base. While at Santa Anna, I served also with a Marine named Nelson Delgado, whom I had previously known while I was stationed at Parris Island, South Carolina. My impression is that at this time Delgado was an immature person with few original thoughts.

Oswald did not often associate with his fellow Marines. Although I know of no general explanation for this, I personally stayed away from Oswald because I had heard a rumor to the effect that he was homosexual. I personally observed nothing to support this rumor, and am not sure that I heard it from more than one person. Oswald seldom, if ever, went out with women; this may have been one of the reasons I came to the conclusion that he might have been homosexual.

Oswald complained about orders given him more than the average Marine did. He was a person who was never satisfied with any event or situation. He was quietly sarcastic. Though he tried to be witty, in my opinion his attempts at humor failed. However, he - unlike Delgado - was not a show-off; he did not seem to want to be the center of attention.

I regarded Oswald as quite intelligent, and, prior to the assassination of President Kennedy, was of the opinion that he had received a college education. I am under the impression that he told me that he was a college graduate, but I may have come to this conclusion because he once spoke to me of going to Officer Candidate School.

Oswald was not personally neat, but he performed his job well. When I knew him, he was studying Russian. He often made remarks in Russian; the less intelligent members of the unit admired him for this.

Although I recall that Oswald read a great deal, I do not remember what sort of books he read. He played chess a good deal, particularly with Richard Call. I have no recollection of his enjoying music. Nor do I remember his making any trips off post, or his subscribing to a Russian newspaper.

At the time, in 1959, the United States was having real difficulty in acquiring information out of the Soviet Union; the technical systems had, of course, not developed to the point that they are at today, and we were resorting to all sorts of activities. One of these activities was an ONI (Office of Naval Intelligence) program which involved three dozen, maybe forty, young men who were made to appear disenchanted, poor, American youths who had become turned off and wanted to see what communism was all about. Some of these people lasted only a few weeks. They were sent into the Soviet Union, or into eastern Europe, with the specific intention the Soviets would pick them up and 'double' them if they suspected them of being US agents, or recruit them as KGB agents. They were trained at various naval installations both here and abroad, but the operation was being run out of Nag's Head, North Carolina.

It is believed that at this point Oswald made an application for early discharge from the Marines on the grounds of hardship. Clearly it was an unrealistic application, without any hope of being seriously considered let alone granted. The kind of hardship which would warrant discharge in a foreign country would have been difficult to imagine. It was a curious thing to have happened, but only one in a number of curious things which suggested Oswald was being given a 'background'. In this case the refusal of such an application may have been to indicate that Oswald most clearly had no special status and was not receiving any special treatment. It was also, perhaps, to convince 'interested parties' he was losing any interest he might have had in serving his country, a man who wanted 'out', and most certainly not what, in reality, he had now become: a hand-picked and newly recruited agent of the CIA.

Few of the leading researchers would now doubt that this was the case. In his actions and responses, Oswald began to display all the hallmarks of working for the CIA, his special needs being provided for in ways which would not advertise the fact. His display of distress when shooting off a few rounds, no doubt at nothing at all, provided a cover for his speedy return to Japan to participate in preparations for his new work, which included learning Russian, a difficult language for any Westerner to acquire. It is worth recalling at this point, that while Oswald was at Keesler Air Base, he was remembered for his mysterious 100-mile weekend trips to New Orleans. Time would reveal Oswald to have close links with New Orleans in respect of his CIA work. It would seem entirely plausible that, at this early stage in his military career, Lee Harvey Oswald had been sent on a series of visits to that city to have his aptitudes and attitudes for espionage carefully examined. It was happening to a number of young men, selected for the same kind of mission, both in and out of military service at about the same time. Whatever was the case the trips to New Orleans were something he strictly did not talk to his friends about.

In general, our family life began to deteriorate after we arrived in America. Lee was always hot-tempered, and now this trait of character more and more prevented us from living together in harmony. Lee became very irritable, and sometimes some completely trivial thing would drive him into a rage. I myself do not have a particularly quiet disposition, but I had to change my character a great deal in order to maintain a more or less peaceful family life.

The Communist Party of the United States has betrayed itself! It has turned itself into the tradional lever of a foreign power to overthrow the government of the United States; not in the name of freedom or high ideals, but in servile conformity to the wishes of the Soviet Union and in anticipation of Soviet Russia's complete domination of the American continent.

There can be no sympathy for those who have turned the idea of communism into a vile curse to western man. The Soviets have committed crimes unsurpassed even by their early day capitalist counterparts, the imprisonment of their own peoples, with the mass extermination so typical of Stalin, and the individual surpresstion and regimentation under Krushehev. The deportations, the purposeful curtailment of diet in the consumer slighted population of Russia, the murder of history, the prositution of art and culture.

On Monday, August 12, 1963, Lee and Carlos Bringuier appeared in Second Municipal Court at 1:00 p.m. The charges were dismissed against Bringuier, and Lee was fined $10.00. Marina Oswald confirmed that Lee actually wanted to be arrested. He wanted the exposure. He wanted to get the publicity as a pro-Castroite. She referred to this as "self-advertising." Marina was right, but the question still remains: Why?

Lee was back handing out his Fair Play for Cuba Committee flyers on the streets of New Orleans on August 16. He had hired three men to help with distribution: odd, since he was nearly without funds for himself and his family. They stood in front of the International Trade Mart, whose director, Clay Shaw, would be charged with conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy four years later by New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison. Somebody (probably Lee himself or, possibly, Carlos Bringuier) called WDSU-TV and other members of the New Orleans news media to announce that he was distributing the pro-Castro literature. More self-advertising. That evening's television news broadcast his activity, and the resulting bad publicity made it nearly impossible for him to obtain employment.

Q: Tosh, did you know Lee Harvey Oswald?

A: Yes, I knew Lee Harvey Oswald.

Q: Where did you first meet him?

A: I first meet Lee Harvey Oswald at a secret base called Illusionary Warfare Training at Nagshead, North Carolina in 1959 prior to him going to language school and going to Russia.

Q; Did you just meet him or did you get to know him?

A: I got to... well, I just met him and remembered him.... At the time that I met him in '59 he was a Marine, we were all in Illusionary Warfare Training, or something... propaganda stuff, and he was there and he was doing language study at that particular point. I didn't recognize him as anybody them other than just another black operative.

Q: Did you ever see him after that?

A: Yes, one time in Honolulu with another guy at a radar installation and that was about... .oh I guess shortly after that... shortly after Nagshead... my dates may be wrong. It could have been '58 or '59 right around that area.

Q: Were there other occasions when you saw him?

A: Well, the one at the radar complex there on either Ohau or... I can't remember exactly where it was. But he was there at that time and I saw him briefly at Wheeler Air Force Base there at there at Oahu outside Honolulu and he was getting ready to leave an go to Dallas... the whole group was getting ready to leave and we had been just completing jungle warfare training.

Q: Did you ever see him again after that?

A: Yes, in '62 when I came back into Dallas area, that, through the Dallas Cubans over on, not Harlendale Street, but there was a "safe" house here in Dallas, Oak Cliff, two of them. There was a small two bedroom frame type house that was located in Oak Cliff not far from the zoo where the old inner urban track used to go through, I mean there's a highline down through there now, at that place and then I think it was Zang's Blvd. there used to be "safe" house there that was run by Hernandez out of Miami that had connections with Alpha 66 at one point that se up a "safe" house for Dallas Cubans that were filtrating out of the Miami area. Oswald, from those two "safe" houses, I went to another "safe" house and that "safe" house was directly behind where Oswald had rented a room, in the alley, and I carved my initials on the draining board up there at that time and that was a gun running operation and Oswald was renting the front house. I saw him there briefly but did not talk to him.

Q: Is that the house he lived in when the assassination occurred?

A: I'm not sure of the dates. Researchers would have to get the dates but this was just prior.. I had just came in from flying Roselli and John Martino from Houston to Galvezton and my next trip was from Houston back to Dallas so that would have been around June of '63, or no... before June... it would have been around April or May of '63.

While Marina was usually a lot of fun, laughed easily but did not say anything that would make you think - Lee was serious and did not take life as a joke. But if he happened to be in a good mood, he became an excellent companion, remembered political jokes, told them well and laughed at yours.

"Do you know this one about an American tourist carrying a small transistor radio in Moscow?" Lee asked me.

"No, I don't know the story.

"Well, the Moscovite stopped the American and said: 'we make them much better than you do. What is it?'"

We both laughed. Then I countered and asked Lee.

"What is the difference between the capitalism and the socialism?"

Lee did not know.

"Capitalism makes social mistakes and socialism makes CAPITAL mistakes."

"A Russian Commissar is asked at the holy gates where he would like to go - to a capitalist hell or to a communist hell," said Lee.

" The Commissar answers: ' would like to go to a capitalist hell, I am so tired of communist hell."

Then I told Lee a few foolish jokes about Kennedy.

"President Kennedy tells a group of businessmen: 'the economic situation is so good that if I weren't your president I would invest in the stock marked right now! And the businessmen answer in unison:' so would we if you were not our president."

We both laughed.

"Kennedy had a terrible nightmare. He wakes up Jackie: 'Honey what a terrible thing, I dreamed I was spending my own money, not government's."

Again we laughed, but without resentment, we both liked President Kennedy. So I finished my foolish jokes by this one:

"John Kennedy runs to his mother at night. 'Mama! Mama! Help! Bobby tries to run MY country."

I think it was at that time that I told Lee that I had known Jacqueline Kennedy as a young girl, as well as her mother, father and all her relatives and how charming the whole family was. I especially liked "Black Jack" Bouvier, Jackie's father, a delightful Casanova of the Wall Street.

Lee was not jealous of Kennedy's and Bouviers' wealth and did not envy their social positions, of that I was sure. To him wealth and society were big jokes, but he did not resent them.

James McDonald: Did he say why he left the United States? Did he tell you or anyone in your presence?

Marina Oswald: I do not recall that.

James McDonald: Do you recall asking him why he was in Russia?

Marina Oswald: I do not remember if I asked him at that particular evening.

James McDonald: Did he tell you where in the United States he was from?

Marina Oswald: No.

James McDonald: Can you recall when he first expressed any political views to you?

Marina Oswald: Not really. The politics really weren't discussed in the sense comparing two countries, which one is better.

James McDonald: Did he ever tell you he was a Communist?

Marina Oswald: No.

James McDonald: Or a Marxist?

Marina Oswald: No.

James McDonald: Or a Trotskyite?

Marina Oswald: No.

James McDonald: Before or after you got married, can you recall what political views he was expressing to you then?

Marina Oswald: Well, the political views never have been emphasized in the relationship at all.

James McDonald: When do you recall he first told you why he left the United States to come to Russia?

Marina Oswald: So anyway he said that being young, he just wanted to see - I mean he read something about Soviet Union and he wanted to see for himself what life looked like in Soviet Union.

James McDonald: Do you recall him expressing dissatisfaction with the United States?

Marina Oswald: No, I do not recall, not at that moment, I mean not at the beginning of the relationship, if he was saying something for or against the United States.

James McDonald: You are saying at the beginning of your relationship you don't recall him saying anything for or against the United States?

Marina Oswald: No.

James McDonald: When do you recall him first expressing opinions against the United States?

Marina Oswald: A few months after the marriage when I found out that he is wishing to return to his homeland. Then he started complaining about the bad weather in Russia and how eager he will be to go back.

James McDonald: Can you recall Oswald expressing at this time, soon after your marriage but prior to the return, prior to your return to the United States, do you recall him expressing any views about the United States and its political system, either pro or con, for or against.

Marina Oswald: No.

James McDonald: And specifically regarding John Kennedy?

Marina Oswald: What I learned about John Kennedy it was only through Lee practically, and he always spoke very complimentary about the President. He was very happy when John Kennedy was elected.

James McDonald: And you are saying while you were still in the Soviet Union he was very complimentary about John Kennedy?

Marina Oswald: Yes, it seemed like he was talking about how young and attractive the President of the United States is.

James McDonald: Can you recall during this time when he ever expressed any contrary views about Kennedy?

Marina Oswald: Never.

James McDonald: Did you ever ask him directly why did you come to the U.S.S.R.?

Marina Oswald: I probably did.

James McDonald: Can you recall what his answer was?

Marina Oswald: Well, he said that he was always curious about Soviet Union, and he bought tourist visa. I asked him how did he got in the United States, I mean to Soviet Union, I am sorry. He said that he bought visa or whatever you call it, asked for permit to enter the country through Finland as a tourist, and then he asked to stay.

Richardson Preyer: Did you ever suspect that Lee might be a spy of some sort for either the Soviet KGB or for the U.S. CIA?

Marina Oswald: It did cross my mind sometime during our life in Russia; yes, because he will be sitting with those papers and writing something in English, and I don't know. Maybe he was making reports to somebody and didn't want me to know.

Richardson Preyer: When it crossed your mind, did you think he was a spy for the United States or for the Soviet Union?

Marina Oswald: For United States.

Richardson Preyer: And you based that on the fact that he often was writing notes in English which you did not understand.

Marina Oswald: Yes.

The Directorio Revolucionario Estudiantil (DRE) unquestionably identified Oswald, as did Bannister, as just the kind of 'nut' who could be a useful tool in the war against Castro and Fair Play for Cuba subversives.

On August 5, 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald visited a store managed by Carlos Bringuier, a Cuban refugee and avid opponent of Castro, and the New Orleans delegate of the Cuban student directorate. Oswald indicated an interest in joining the struggle against Castro. He told Bringuier that he had been a marine and was trained in guerrilla warfare, and that he was willing not only to train Cubans to fight Castro but also to join the fight himself. The next day Oswald returned to the store and left his Guidebook for Marines for Bringuier.

A few days later, a friend of Bringuier's saw Oswald passing out Fair Play for Cuba Committee leaflets on Canal Street, not far from the store Bringuier managed. He, Bringuier and another exile proceeded to the site of Oswald's mini-demonstration, and Bringuier was enraged when he recognized the pro-Castro demonstrator as the anti-Castro activist wannabe of a few days before. Though no physical violence resulted, some heated words were uttered, a crowd gathered, and Oswald was arrested along with the three Cubans for disturbing the peace.

Lee Harvey Oswald: The principals of thought of the Fair Play for Cuba consist of restoration of diplomatic trade and tourist relations with Cuba. That is one of our main points. We are for that. I disagree that this situation regarding American-Cuban relations is very unpopular. We are in the minority surely. We are not particularly interested in what Cuban exiles or rightists members of rightist organizations have to say. We are primarily interested in the attitude of the US government toward Cuba. And in that way we are striving to get the United States to adopt measures which would be more friendly toward the Cuban people and the new Cuban regime in that country. We are not all communist controlled regardless of the fact that I have the experience of living in Russia, regardless of the fact that we have been investigated, regardless of those facts, the Fair Play for Cuba Committee is an independent organization not affiliated with any other organization. Our aims and our ideals are very clear and in the best keeping with American traditions of democracy.

Carlos Bringuier: Do you agree with Fidel Castro when in his last speech of July 26th of this year he qualified President John F. Kennedy of the United States as a ruffian and a thief? Do you agree with Mr. Castro?

Lee Harvey Oswald: I would not agree with that particular wording. However, I and the Fair Play for Cuba Committee do think that the United States Government through certain agencies, mainly the State Department and the C.I.A., has made monumental mistakes in its relations with Cuba. Mistakes which are pushing Cuba into the sphere of activity of let's say a very dogmatic communist country such as China.

Bill Slatter: Mr. Oswald would you agree that when Castro first took power - would you agree that the United States was very friendly with Castro, that the people of this country had nothing but admiration for him, that they were very glad to see Batista thrown out?

Lee Harvey Oswald: I would say that the activities of the United States government in regards to Batista were a manifestation of not so much support for Fidel Castro but rather a withdrawal of support from Batista. In other words we stopped armaments to Batista. What we should have been done was to take those armaments and drop them into the Sierra Maestra where Fidel Castro could have used them. As for public sentiment at that time, I think even before the revolution, there were rumblings of official comment and so forth from government officials er, against Fidel Castro.

Ed Butler: You've never been to Cuba, of course, but why are the people of Cuba starving today?

Lee Harvey Oswald: Well any country emerging from a semi-colonial state and embarking upon reforms which require a diversification of agriculture you are going to have shortages. After all 80% of imports into the United States from Cuba were two products, tobacco and sugar. Nowadays, while Cuba is reducing its production as far as sugar cane goes it is striving to grow unlimited, and unheard of for Cuba, quantities of certain vegetables such as sweet potatoes, lima beans, cotton, and so forth, so that they can become agriculturally independent ...

Ed Butler: Gentlemen I'm going to have to interrupt you. Our time is almost up. We've had three guests tonight on Conversation Carte Blanche, Bill Stuckey and I have been talking to Lee Harvey Oswald, Secretary of the New Orleans Chapter of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, Ed Butler, Executive Vice-president of the Information Council of the Americas (INCA) and Carlos Bringuier, Cuban refugee. Thank you very much.

The Central Intelligence Agency advised that on October 1, 1963, an extremely sensitive source had reported that an individual identified himself as Lee Odwald, who contacted the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City inquiring as to any messages. Special Agents of this Bureau, who have conversed with Oswald in Dallas, Texas, have observed photographs of the individual referred to above and have listened to a recording of his voice. These Special Agents are of the opinion that the above-referred-to individual was not Lee Harvey Oswald.

About a week after the assassination, Aynesworth, along with Bill Alexander, an assistant district attorney in Dallas, decided to find out if Lee Oswald had been an informant of the Dallas FBI, and of mine in particular. To this end, they concocted a totally false story about how Lee Oswald was a regularly paid informant of the Dallas FBI. At the time, I had no idea what information the Houston Post was relying on; it wasn't until February 1976, in Esquire magazine, that Aynesworth finally admitted he and Alexander had lied and made up the entire story in an effort to draw the FBI out on this issue. They said Oswald was paid $200 a month and even made up an imaginary informant number for Oswald, S172 - which was not in any way how the FBI classified their informants. Aynesworth then fed this story to Lonnie Hudkins of the Post, who ran it on January 1, 1964. Hudkins cited confidential but reliable sources for his story's allegations. The FBI issued a flat denial of the Post story. I was once again prohibited by Bureau procedure from commenting. It was clear that they were pointing a finger at me, since I was known to be the agent in charge of the Oswald file.

How to pin the president's death on Castro? Simple. Have a pro-Castroite accused as the assassin. The perfect candidate for "designated patsy" was Lee Harvey Oswald.

In all likelihood, the CIA kept Oswald on as an inactive agent, as perhaps they had been since his defection to the USSR. In September 1962, he went to work for the FBI as a $200-per-month informant (Warren Commission executive session, January 27, 1964). But on what or whom could he inform? One possibility is that he was supposed to observe the White Russian community in and around Dallas, which included the late George DeMohrenschildt.

A very probable scenario is that in mid-1963 Lee Oswald was reactivated by the CIA and sent to New Orleans to create a pro-Castro cover by starting the New Orleans chapter of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. It appears at this point that CIA agent payroll number 110669 had been ordered by his superiors to furnish himself with a pro-Castro cover in order to enable him to enter Cuba by way of Mexico City possibly in order to infiltrate Cuban intelligence, or perhaps to try to assassinate Castro. Possibly, those members of the CIA involved in the Kennedy assassination plot were setting Oswald up as "the missing link," the connection between Fidel Castro and the assassination.

Oswald advised that he had only one post office box which was at Dallas, Texas. He denied bringing any package to work on the morning of November 22 1963. He stated that he was not in the process of fixing up his apartment and he denied telling Wesley Frazier that the purpose of his visit to Irving, Texas, on the night of November 21 1963, was to obtain some curtain rods from Mrs Ruth Paine.

Oswald stated that it was not exactly true as recently stated by him that he rode a bus from his place of employment to his residence on November 22 1963. He stated actually he did board a city bus at his place of employment but that after about a block or two, due to traffic congestion, he left the bus and rode a city cab to his apartment on North Beckley. He recalled that at the time, some lady looked in and asked the driver to call her a cab. He stated that he might have made some remarks to the cab driver merely for the purpose of passing the time of day at that time. He recalled that his fare was approximately 85 cents. He stated that after arriving at his apartment, he changed his shirt and trousers because they were dirty. He described his dirty clothes as being a reddish colored, long-sleeved, shirt with a button-down collar and gray colored trousers' He indicated that he had placed these articles of clothing in the lower drawer of his dresser.

Oswald stated that on November 22 1963, he had eaten lunch in the lunch-room at the Texas School Book Depository alone, but recalled possibly two Negro employees walking through the room during this period. He stated possibly one of these employees was called 'Junior' and the other was a short individual whose name he could not recall but whom he would be able to recognise. He stated that his lunch had consisted of a cheese sandwich and an apple which he had obtained at Mrs Ruth Paine's residence in Irving, Texas, upon his leaving for work that morning.

Oswald stated that Mrs Paine receives no pay for keeping his wife and children at her residence. He stated that their presence in Mrs Paine's residence is a good arrangement for her because of her language interest, indicating that his wife speaks Russian and Mrs Paine is interested in the Russian language.

Oswald denied having kept a rifle in Mrs Paine's garage at Irving, Texas, but stated that he did have certain articles stored in her garage, consisting of two sea bags, a couple of suitcases, and several boxes of kitchen articles and also kept his clothes at Mrs Paine's residence. He stated that all the articles in Mrs Paine's garage had been brought there about September 1963, from New Orleans, Louisiana.

Oswald stated that he has had no visitors at his apartment on North Beckley.

Oswald stated that he has no receipts for purchase of any guns and has never ordered any guns and does not own a rifle nor has he ever possessed a rifle.

Oswald denied that he is a member of the Communist Party.

Oswald stated that he purchased a pistol, which was taken off him by police officers on November 22 1963, about six months ago. He declined to state where he had purchased it.

Twenty-five years after the assassination of President Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald's widow says she now believes Oswald did not act alone in the killing.

''I think he was caught between two powers - the government and organized crime,'' said Marina Oswald Porter in the November issue of Ladies' Home Journal, published Tuesday.

Testimony by Oswald's widow, who married Dallas carpenter Kenneth Porter in 1965, helped the Warren Commission conclude that a deranged Oswald acted alone in the Nov. 22, 1963, assassination.

''When I was questioned by the Warren Commission, I was a blind kitten,'' she said. The commission, appointed to investigate the assassination, concluded it was the work of a single gunman, Oswald. But in 1979, the House Select Committee on Assassinations, relying in part on acoustical evidence, concluded that a conspiracy was likely and that it may have involved organized crime.

Since then, Porter, 47, has drawn new conclusions. ''I don't know if Lee shot him,'' she said. ''I'm not saying that Lee is innocent, that he didn't know about the conspiracy or was not a part of it, but I am saying he's not necessarily guilty of murder.''

''At first, I thought that Jack Ruby (who killed Oswald two days after the assassination) was swayed by passion; all of America was grieving,'' she said. ''But later, we found that he had connections with the underworld. Now, I think Lee was killed to keep his mouth shut.''

Porter said that in retrospect, Oswald seemed professionally schooled in secretiveness, ''and I believe he worked for the American government.''

''He was taught the Russian language when he was in the military. Do you think that is usual, that an ordinary soldier is taught Russian? Also, he got in and out of Russia quite easily, and he got me out quite easily,'' said the Russian-born Porter. She had emigrated from the Soviet Union in 1961 after marrying Oswald, who had defected to the Soviets and then changed his mind and returned to the United States.

In the months preceding the assassination, a man posing as Oswald reportedly appeared in several public places in the Dallas area.

''I learned afterward that someone who said he was Lee had been going around looking to buy a car, having a drink in a bar. I'm telling you, Lee did not drink, and he didn't know how to drive.

''And afterward, the FBI took me to a store in Fort Worth where Lee was supposed to have gone to buy a gun. Someone even described me and said I was with him. This woman was wearing a maternity outfit like one I had. But I had never been there,'' she said.

Porter said she hopes the truth will emerge when the Warren Commission materials are declassified.

''Look, I'm walking through the woods, trying to find a path, just like all of us,'' she said. ''The only difference is, I have a little bit of insight. Only half the truth has been told.''

I am writing to you regarding the release of still classified documents related to the assassination of President Kennedy and to my former husband, Lee Harvey Oswald.

Specifically, I am writing to ask about documents I have learned of from a recent book and from a story in the Washington Post by the authors of the same book (as well as other documents they have described to me). The book reviews Dallas police, FBI, and CIA files released since 1992, and places them in the context of previously known information. I would like to know what the Review Board is doing to obtain the following:

1. The Dallas field office and headquarters FBI reports on the arrests of Donnell D. Whitter and Lawrence R. Miller in Dallas on November 18, 1963 with a carload of stolen US army weapons. I believe that Lee Oswald was the FBI informant who made these arrests possible. I would also like to know what your board has done to obtain the reports of the US Marshal and the US Army on the same arrests, and the burglary these men were suspected of.

2. The records of the FBI interrogations of John Franklin Elrod, John Forrester Gedney and Harold Doyle (the latter men were previously known as two of the "three tramps") in the Dallas jail November 22-24, 1963. All of these men have stated that they were interrogated during that time by the FBI.

3. The official explanation of why the arrest records for Mr. Elrod, Mr. Gedney and Mr. Doyle, as well as for Daniel Wayne Douglas and Gus Abrams were placed "under federal seal" in the Dallas Police Records Division for 26 years as described by Dallas City Archives supervisor Laura McGhee to the FBI in 1992.

4. The full records of the interrogation of Lee Harvey Oswald, including his interrogation in the presence of John Franklin Elrod as described by Elrod in an FBI report dated August 11, 1964.

5. The reports of army intelligence agent Ed J. Coyle on his investigation of Captain George Nonte, John Thomas Masen, Donnell D. Whitter, Lawrence R. Miller, and/or Jack Ruby. I am also requesting that you obtain agent Coyle's reports as army liaison for presidential protection on November 22, 1963 (as described by Coyle's commanding officer Col. Robert Jones in sworn testimony to the House Select Committee on Assassinations). If the army does not immediately produce these documents, they should be required to produce agent Coyle to explain what happened to his reports.

6. Secret Service reports and tapes of that agency's investigation of Father Walter Machann and Silvia Odio in 1963-64.

7. Reports of the FBI investigation of Cuban exiles in Dallas, to include known but still classified documents on Fermin de Goicochea Sanchez, Father Walter Machann and the Dallas Diocese Catholic Cuban Relocation Committee. These would include informant files for Father Machann and/or reports of interviews of Father Machann by Dallas FBI agent W. Heitman.

8. The full particulars and original of the teletype received by Mr. William Walter in the New Orleans FBI office on the morning of November 17, 1963, warning of a possible assassination attempt on President Kennedy in Dallas. I now believe that my former husband met with the Dallas FBI on November 16, 1963, and provided informant information on which this teletype was based.

9. A full report of Lee Harvey Oswald's visit to the Dallas FBI office on November 16, 1963.

10. A full account of FBI agent James P. Hosty's claim (in his recent book, Assignment Oswald) that Lee Harvey Oswald knew of a planned "paramilitary invasion of Cuba" by "a group of right wing Cuban exiles in outlying areas of New Orleans." We now know that such an invasion was indeed planned by a Cuban group operating on CIA payroll in Miami, New Orleans, and Dallas - the same group infiltrated by Lee Oswald. We know this information only from documents released since 1992, as described in the book I have mentioned. On what basis did agent Hosty believe Lee "had learned" of these plans, unless Lee himself told him this? I am therefore specifically requesting the release of the informant report that Lee Oswald provided to agent Hosty and/or other FBI personnel on this intelligence information.

The time for the Review Board to obtain and release the most important documents related to the assassination of President Kennedy is running out. At the time of the assassination of this great president whom I loved, I was misled by the "evidence" presented to me by government authorities and I assisted in the conviction of Lee Harvey Oswald as the assassin. From the new information now available, I am now convinced that he was an FBI informant and believe that he did not kill President Kennedy. It is time for Americans to know their full history. On this day when I and all Americans are grieving for the victims of Oklahoma City, I am also thinking of my children and grandchildren, and of all American children, when I insist that your board give the highest priority to the release of the documents I have listed. This is the duty you were charged with by law. Anything else is unacceptable - not just to me, but to all patriotic Americans.

(1) The shots which killed President Kennedy and wounded Governor Connally were fired from the sixth floor window at the southeast corner of the Texas School Book Depository. This determination is based upon the following:

Witnesses at the scene of the assassination saw a rifle being fired from the sixth-floor window of the Depository Building, and some witnesses saw a rifle in the window immediately after the shots were fired.

The nearly whole bullet found on Governor Connally's stretcher at Parkland Memorial Hospital and the two bullet fragments found in the front seat of the Presidential limousine were fired from the 6.5-millimeter Mannlicher-Carcano rifle found on the sixth floor of the Depository Building to the exclusion of all other weapons.

The three used cartridge cases found near the window on the sixth floor at the southeast corner of the building were fired from the same rifle which fired the above - described bullet and fragments, to the exclusion of all other weapons.

The windshield in the Presidential limousine was struck by a bullet fragment on the inside surface of the glass, but was not penetrated.

The nature of the bullet wounds suffered by President Kennedy and Governor Connally and the location of the car at the time of the shots establish that the bullets were fired from above and behind the Presidential limousine, striking the President and the Governor as follows:

President Kennedy was first struck by a bullet which entered at the back of his neck and exited through the lower front portion of his neck, causing a wound which would not necessarily have been lethal. The President was struck a second time by a bullet which entered the right-rear portion of his head, causing a massive and fatal wound.

Governor Connally was struck by a bullet which entered on the right side of his back and traveled downward through the right side of his chest, exiting below his right nipple. This bullet then passed through his right wrist and entered his left thigh where it caused a superficial wound.

There is no credible evidence that the shots were fired from the Triple Underpass, ahead of the motorcade, or from any other location.

(2) The weight of the evidence indicates that there were three shots fired.

(3) Although it is not necessary to any essential findings of the Commission to determine just which shot hit Governor Connally, there is very persuasive evidence from the experts to indicate that the same bullet which pierced the President's throat also caused Governor Connally's wounds. However, Governor Connally's testimony and certain other factors have given rise to some difference of opinion as to this probability but there is no question in the mind of any member of the Commission that all the shots which caused the President's and Governor Connally's wounds were fired from the sixth floor window of the Texas School Book Depository.

(4) The shots which killed President Kennedy and wounded Governor Connally were fired by Lee Harvey Oswald. This conclusion is based upon the following:

The Mannlicher-Carcano 6.5 - millimeter Italian rifle from which the shots were fired was owned by and in the possession of Oswald.

Oswald carried this rifle into the Depository Building on the morning of November 22, 1963.

Oswald, at the time of the assassination, was present at the window from which the shots were fired.

Shortly after the assassination, the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle belonging to Oswald was found partially hidden between some cartons on the sixth floor and the improvised paper bag in which Oswald brought the rifle to the Depository was found close by the window from which the shots were fired.

Based on testimony of the experts and their analysis of films of the assassination, the Commission has concluded that a rifleman of Lee Harvey Oswald's capabilities could have fired the shots from the rifle used in the assassination within the elapsed time of the shooting. The Commission has concluded further that Oswald possessed the capability with a rifle which enabled him to commit the assassination.

Oswald lied to the police after his arrest concerning important substantive matters.

Oswald had attempted to kill Maj. Gen. Edwin A. Walker (Resigned, U.S. Army) on April 10, 1963, thereby demonstrating his disposition to take human life.

(5) Oswald killed Dallas Police Patrolman J. D. Tippit approximately 45 minutes after the assassination. This conclusion upholds the finding that Oswald fired the shots which killed President Kennedy and wounded Governor Connally and is supported by the following:

Two eyewitnesses saw the Tippit shooting and seven eyewitnesses heard the shots and saw the gunman leave the scene with revolver in hand. These nine eyewitnesses positively identified Lee Harvey Oswald as the man they saw.

The cartridge cases found at the scene of the shooting were fired from the revolver in the possession of Oswald at the time of his arrest to the exclusion of all other weapons.

The revolver in Oswald's possession at the time of his arrest was purchased by and belonged to Oswald.

Oswald's jacket was found along the path of flight taken by the gunman as he fled from the scene of the killing.

(6) Within 80 minutes of the assassination and 35 minutes of the Tippit killing Oswald resisted arrest at the theater by attempting to shoot another Dallas police officer.

(7) The Commission has reached the following conclusions concerning Oswald's interrogation and detention by the Dallas police:

Except for the force required to effect his arrest, Oswald was not subjected to any physical coercion by any law enforcement officials. He was advised that he could not be compelled to give any information and that any statements made by him might be used against him in court. He was advised of his right to counsel. He was given the opportunity to obtain counsel of his own choice and was offered legal assistance by the Dallas Bar Association, which he rejected at that time.

Newspaper, radio, and television reporters were allowed uninhibited access to the area through which Oswald had to pass when he was moved from his cell to the interrogation room and other sections of the building, thereby subjecting Oswald to harassment and creating chaotic conditions which were not conducive to orderly interrogation or the protection of the rights of the prisoner.

The numerous statements, sometimes erroneous, made to the press by various local law enforcement officials, during this period of confusion and disorder in the police station, would have presented serious obstacles to the obtaining of a fair trial for Oswald. To the extent that the information was erroneous or misleading, it helped to create doubts, speculations, and fears in the mind of the public which might otherwise not have arisen.

(8) The Commission has reached the following conclusions concerning the killing of Oswald by Jack Ruby on November 24, 1963:

Ruby entered the basement of the Dallas Police Department shortly after 11:17 a.m. and killed Lee Harvey Oswald at 11:21 a.m.

Although the evidence on Ruby's means of entry is not conclusive, the weight of the evidence indicates that he walked down the ramp leading from Main Street to the basement of the police department.

There is no evidence to support the rumor that Ruby may have been assisted by any members of the Dallas Police Department in the killing of Oswald.

The Dallas Police Department's decision to transfer Oswald to the county jail in full public view was unsound.

The arrangements made by the police department on Sunday morning, only a few hours before the attempted transfer, were inadequate. Of critical importance was the fact that news media representatives and others were not excluded from the basement even after the police were notified of threats to Oswald's life. These deficiencies contributed to the death of Lee Harvey Oswald.

(9) The Commission has found no evidence that either Lee Harvey Oswald or Jack Ruby was part of any conspiracy, domestic or foreign, to assassinate President Kennedy. The reasons for this conclusion are:

The Commission has found no evidence that anyone assisted Oswald in planning or carrying out the assassination. In this connection it has thoroughly investigated, among other factors, the circumstances surrounding the planning of the motorcade route through Dallas, the hiring of Oswald by the Texas School Book Depository Co. on October 15, 1963, the method by which the rifle was brought into the building, the placing of cartons of books at the window, Oswald's escape from the building, and the testimony of eyewitnesses to the shooting.

The Commission has found no evidence that Oswald was involved with any person or group in a conspiracy to assassinate the President, although it has thoroughly investigated, in addition to other possible leads, all facets of Oswald's associations, finances, and personal habits, particularly during the period following his return from the Soviet Union in June 1962.

The Commission has found no evidence to show that Oswald was employed, persuaded, or encouraged by any foreign government to assassinate President Kennedy or that he was an agent of any foreign government, although the Commission has reviewed the circumstances surrounding Oswald's defection to the Soviet Union, his life there from October of 1959 to June of 1962 so far as it can be reconstructed, his known contacts with the Fair Play for Cuba Committee and his visits to the Cuban and Soviet Embassies in Mexico City during his trip to Mexico from September 26 to October 3, 1963, and his known contacts with the Soviet Embassy in the United States.

The Commission has explored all attempts of Oswald to identify himself with various political groups, including the Communist Party, U.S.A., the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, and the Socialist Workers Party, and has been unable to find any evidence that the contacts which he initiated were related to Oswald's subsequent assassination of the President.

All of the evidence before the Commission established that there was nothing to support the speculation that Oswald was an agent, employee, or informant of the FBI, the CIA, or any other governmental agency. It has thoroughly investigated Oswald's relationships prior to the assassination with all agencies of the U.S. Government. All contacts with Oswald by any of these agencies were made in the regular exercise of their different responsibilities.

No direct or indirect relationship between Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby has been discovered by the Commission, nor has it been able to find any credible evidence that either knew the other, although a thorough investigation was made of the many rumors and speculations of such a relationship.

The Commission has found no evidence that Jack Ruby acted with any other person in the killing of Lee Harvey Oswald.

After careful investigation the Commission has found no credible evidence either that Ruby and Officer Tippit, who was killed by Oswald, knew each other or that Oswald and Tippit knew each other. Because of the difficulty of proving negatives to a certainty the possibility of others being involved with either Oswald or Ruby cannot be established categorically, but if there is any such evidence it has been beyond the reach of all the investigative agencies and resources of the United States and has not come to the attention of this Commission.

(10) In its entire investigation the Commission has found no evidence of conspiracy, subversion, or disloyalty to the U.S. Government by any Federal, State, or local official.

(11) On the basis of the evidence before the Commission it concludes that, Oswald acted alone. Therefore, to determine the motives for the assassination of President Kennedy, one must look to the assassin himself. Clues to Oswald's motives can be found in his family history, his education or lack of it, his acts, his writings, and the recollections of those who had close contacts with him throughout his life. The Commission has presented with this report all of the background information bearing on motivation which it could discover. Thus, others may study Lee Oswald's life and arrive at their own conclusions as to his possible motives. The Commission could not make any definitive determination of Oswald's motives. It has endeavored to isolate factors which contributed to his character and which might have influenced his decision to assassinate President Kennedy. These factors were:

His deep-rooted resentment of all authority which was expressed in a hostility toward every society in which he lived;

His inability to enter into meaningful relationships with people, and a continuous pattern of rejecting his environment in favor of new surroundings;

His urge to try to find a place in history and despair at times over failures in his various undertakings;

His capacity for violence as evidenced by his attempt to kill General Walker;

His avowed commitment to Marxism and communism, as he understood the terms and developed his own interpretation of them; this was expressed by his antagonism toward the United States, by his defection to the Soviet Union, by his failure to be reconciled with life in the United States even after his disenchantment with the Soviet Union, and by his efforts, though frustrated, to go to Cuba. Each of these contributed to his capacity to risk all in cruel and irresponsible actions.

(12) The Commission recognizes that the varied responsibilities of the President require that he make frequent trips to all parts of the United States and abroad. Consistent with their high responsibilities Presidents can never be protected from every potential threat. The Secret Service's difficulty in meeting its protective responsibility varies with the activities and the nature of the occupant of the Office of President and his willingness to conform to plans for his safety. In appraising the performance of the Secret Service it should be understood that it has to do its work within such limitations. Nevertheless, the Commission believes that recommendations for improvements in Presidential protection are compelled by the facts disclosed in this investigation.

The complexities of the Presidency have increased so rapidly in recent years that the Secret Service has not been able to develop or to secure adequate resources of personnel and facilities to fulfill its important assignment. This situation should be promptly remedied.

The Commission has concluded that the criteria and procedures of the Secret Service designed to identify and protect against persons considered threats to the president were not adequate prior to the assassination.

The Protective Research Section of the Secret Service, which is responsible for its preventive work, lacked sufficient trained personnel and the mechanical and technical assistance needed to fulfill its responsibility.

Prior to the assassination the Secret Service's criteria dealt with direct threats against the President. Although the Secret Service treated the direct threats against the President adequately, it failed to recognize the necessity of identifying other potential sources of danger to his security. The Secret Service did not develop adequate and specific criteria defining those persons or groups who might present a danger to the President. In effect, the Secret Service largely relied upon other Federal or State agencies to supply the information necessary for it to fulfill its preventive responsibilities, although it did ask for information about direct threats to the President.

The Commission has concluded that there was insufficient liaison and coordination of information between the Secret Service and other Federal agencies necessarily concerned with Presidential protection. Although the FBI, in the normal exercise of its responsibility, had secured considerable information about Lee Harvey Oswald, it had no official responsibility, under the Secret Service criteria existing at the time of the President's trip to Dallas, to refer to the Secret Service the information it had about Oswald. The Commission has concluded, however, that the FBI took an unduly restrictive view of its role in preventive intelligence work prior to the assassination. A more carefully coordinated treatment of the Oswald case by the FBI might well have resulted in bringing Oswald's activities to the attention of the Secret Service.

The Commission has concluded that some of the advance preparations in Dallas made by the Secret Service, such as the detailed security measures taken at Love Field and the Trade Mart, were thorough and well executed. In other respects, however, the Commission has concluded that the advance preparations for the President's trip were deficient.

Although the Secret Service is compelled to rely to a great extent on local law enforcement officials, its procedures at the time of the Dallas trip did not call for well-defined instructions as to the respective responsibilities of the police officials and others assisting in the protection of the President.

The procedures relied upon by the Secret Service for detecting the presence of an assassin located in a building along a motorcade route were inadequate. At the time of the trip to Dallas, the Secret Service as a matter of practice did not investigate, or cause to be checked, any building located along the motorcade route to be taken by the President. The responsibility for observing windows in these buildings during the motorcade was divided between local police personnel stationed on the streets to regulate crowds and Secret Service agents riding in the motorcade. Based on its investigation the Commission has concluded that these arrangements during the trip to Dallas were clearly not sufficient.

The configuration of the Presidential car and the seating arrangements of the Secret Service agents in the car did not afford the Secret Service agents the opportunity they should have had to be of immediate assistance to the President at the first sign of danger.

Within these limitations, however, the Commission finds that the agents most immediately responsible for the President's safety reacted promptly at the time the shots were fired from the Texas School Book Depository Building.

When news of Oswald first began to appear, I wondered how any man could have changed so thoroughly in a few short years. A national news magazine called him a psychopath, a schizoid, a paranoid, and probable homosexual - all in the same single column of print. Suddenly I was reading that he was constantly fighting with his fellow Marines and that in the service he displayed a conspicuous yen for physical violence. I observed no such traits. That an appendix of the Warren Report had to be devoted to speculation and rumors is in my mind argument enough that a good deal of fabrication and exaggeration was involved somewhere along the line. While Oswald had his psychological problems, I doubt that he would have been found legally insane had he lived to face a jury.

At any rate the whole thing smells a bit fishy. It's a mite too simple that a chap kills the President of the United States, escapes from that bother, kills a policeman, eventually is apprehended in a movie theater under circumstances that defy every law of police procedure, and subsequently is murdered under extraordinary circumstances.

Q: Was there a connection between Oswald and organized crime?

A: At this point in time, New Orleans was corrupt, and the principle figure behind that corruption, gambling etc, was Carlos Marcello. Oswald at this time brushed up against organized crime in its worst forms. Oswald's uncle, a man named Charles "Dutz" Murret, was an ex-prize fighter and promoter who was also a bookie. He was under the control of Carlos Marcello, who at that time was the head of the Mafia in New Orleans. These were the people who were in the sphere of Lee Harvey Oswald's life as a child.

Q: Mobsters talked of their hatred of Kennedy. Could you talk about that - which mobsters, what did they say?

A: There is a story told by a man named Edward Becker, of a conversation with Carlos Marcello, in which Carlos Marcello talks about getting, he speaks in Sicilian, "getting the stone out of my shoe," and talking about getting a nut to kill, not Bobby Kennedy, who was his nemesis, but John Kennedy, who was the man behind the nemesis. We took that statement very seriously and investigated Becker and Becker's credibility. Was he associated with the people he says he was? Was he in New Orleans at the time and place he says he was? Our judgment was that Becker's story was true.

More significantly, in recent days, a man named Frank Ragano, who was a long-time lawyer for Santo Trafficante, tells the story that Trafficante, shortly before he underwent a serious operation, confided to him that "Carlos messed up." He said that "we should have killed Bobby and not Giovanni." This evidence is of extraordinary significance.

Q: A number of Mafia leaders have been overheard either threatening or boasting about having a hand in killing Kennedy. What was the evidence?

A: We took very seriously the possibility that organized crime had a hand in the President's death. I personally did not believe it at the time. I thought we could prove that they didn't. The FBI had an illegal electronic surveillance on the major figures of organized crime in the major areas in this country... in New York, Philadelphia, Buffalo and elsewhere. We did a survey of that illegal electronic surveillance: Eight months before the assassination and six months after. We were looking for some indication in these men's conversations that would connect them to the assassination - to either Lee Harvey Oswald, or to Jack Ruby. We found no evidence in it to connect them to Oswald or Ruby. On the other hand, what we did find, shockingly, is repeated conversations by these people that indicated the depth of their hatred for Kennedy, and actual discussions saying: "he ought to be killed," "he ought to be whacked."

Q: But you're pointing the finger towards Carlos Marcello and organized crime rather than the equally violent anti-Kennedy elements in the anti-Castro Cuban movement.

A: You don't have to separate the anti-Castro Cubans and organized crime. There are substantial overlaps. Santo Trafficante (who some claim had met Ruby) from Tampa was in Cuba, and many of his associates in illegal businesses are Cuban and were people who were thrown out of Cuba by Castro. They're both organized crime and anti-Castro Cubans. On the other hand, not every anti-Castro Cuban is involved in organized crime. Indeed most are not. They were legitimate ex-patriots.

ABC News: Let me ask you: 40 years after the fact and 25 years after your investigation, who killed John F. Kennedy?

Blakey: Lee Harvey Oswald killed John Kennedy. Two shots from behind. The evidence is simply overwhelming. You have to be lacking in judgment and experience in dealing with the evidence to think that Lee Harvey Oswald did not kill President Kennedy. That's really not the problem. The problem is: Was there something beyond Lee Harvey Oswald? And now what you do is you look at the evidence.

ABC News: How many shots were fired at Dealey Plaza?

Blakey: What we did is determine that there were in fact four shots. Our scientists looked at a tape we found, and they did a scientific analysis of it, and it indicated four shots in the plaza, three from the depository and one from the grassy knoll. That meant there were two shooters in the plaza, two shooters in the plaza equal a conspiracy.

The first shot from the depository by Lee Harvey Oswald missed. The second shot about 1.6 seconds later, hit the president in the back of the neck. (The bullet exited Kennedy and) hit John Connally. It hit his wrist, hit his leg. Now six seconds from the second shot, we think a shot came from the grassy knoll. It missed the president. The shot from the grassy knoll missed. The X-rays, the autopsy, all of that indicates the president was not hit by a shot from any other direction. Seven-tenths of a second after that, the third shot, fourth in the row, third shot from the depository, hits the president right in the back of the head.

The shot from the grassy knoll is not only supported by the acoustics, which is a tape that we found of a police motorcycle broadcast back to the district station. It is corroborated by eyewitness testimony in the plaza. There were 20 people, at least, who heard a shot from the grassy knoll.

ABC News: In your book you point the finger squarely at Carlos Marcello and his organization. Why would he want to kill Kennedy?

Blakey: Carlos Marcello was being subject to the most vigorous investigation he had ever experienced in his life, designed to put him in jail. He was in fact summarily, without due process, deported to Guatemala. He took the deportation personally. He hated the Kennedys. He had the motive, the opportunity and the means in Lee Harvey Oswald to kill him. I think he did through Oswald.

ABC News: How central is Jack Ruby's murder of Oswald to your understanding of this case?

Blakey: To understand who killed President Kennedy and did he have help, I think you have to understand what happened to the assassin of President Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald. I see Jack Ruby's assassination of Lee Harvey Oswald as a mob hit.

This is in direct contradiction to the Warren Commission. The Warren Commission portrayed, wrongly I think, Jack Ruby as a wild card who serendipitously got into position to kill Oswald. I think in fact he stalked him. I can show you from the Warren Commission's evidence that he tried to get into where he was being interrogated, number one. That he tried to get in where there was going to be a lineup, number two. That he was seen around the garage, where he was announced that he was going to be moved. And we know, from Jack Ruby himself, that he had a gun with him at the time of the lineup.

I believe that Ruby was able to get in to kill Oswald through the corrupt cooperation of the Dallas P.D., that he was let in through a back door and he was given an opportunity to kill Oswald. I see that, therefore, as a mob hit. And if that's a mob hit, there is only one reason for it, and that is to cover up the assassination of the president himself. You kill the killer.

ABC News: Since you believe that Lee Oswald shot the president, and you also believe that Carlos Marcello was behind the assassination, what connections do you point to between Oswald and Marcello?

Blakey: I can show you that Lee Harvey Oswald knew, from his boyhood forward, David Ferrie, and David Ferrie was an investigator for Carlos Marcello on the day of the assassination, with him in a court room in New Orleans. I can show you that Lee Harvey Oswald, when he grew up in New Orleans, lived with the Dutz Murret family (one of Oswald's uncles). Dutz Murret is a bookmaker for Carlos Marcello.

I can show you that there's a bar in New Orleans, and back in the '60s, bars used to have strippers and the strippers circuit is from Jack Ruby's strip joint in Dallas to Marcello-connected strip joints in the New Orleans area. So I can bring this connection.

Did Lee Harvey Oswald grow up in a criminal neighborhood? Yes. Did he have a mob-connected family? Did he have mob-connected friends? Was he known to them to be a crazy guy? He's out publicly distributing Fair Play for Cuba leaflets. If you wanted to enlist him in a conspiracy that would initially appear to be communist and not appear to be organized crime, he's the perfect candidate. Ex-Marine, marksman, probably prepared to kill the president for political reasons.

Could he be induced to kill the president for organized crime reasons unbeknownst to him? I think the answer is yes and compelling.

On 1 November, "Oswald" entered Morgan's Gunshop in Fort Worth and acted "rude and impertinent." A few days later, the night manager of the Dallas Western Union office saw "Oswald" pick up several money orders. On 9 November, "Oswald" test drove a car. The salesman, Albert Bogard, remembered "Oswald's" telling him that he would return in a couple of weeks when he would have "a lot of money" On 10 November "Oswald" applied for a job as a parking attendant at Allright Parking Systems in Dallas. As he talked with Hubert Morrow, the manager, "Oswald" inquired about the Southland Hotel, where the parking lot was located, and whether the building provided a good view of downtown Dallas.

On the afternoon of 22 November, Dr. Homer Wood saw Oswald's picture on television and recognized him as the man he saw at the Sports Drome Rifle Range in Dallas on 16 November. Dr. Wood, his account corroborated by his son, remembered "Oswald's" firing a 6.5 mm. Italian rifle with a four-power scope. Considering "Oswald's" purchase of ammunition a few days before, the repair work done on his rifle by Dial Ryder, we see a pattern clearly emerging. "Oswald" bought ammunition, had his rifle repaired, inquired about the view from a Dallas building, remarked about coming into possession of a lot of money very soon, and called attention to himself at the firing range.

All these incidents clearly cast suspicion on Oswald. Yet, the real Lee Harvey Oswald did not participate in any of them. The evidence demonstrates that he was elsewhere when each of these events took place. Yet the evidence also demonstrates that they did take place and that numerous reliable eyewitnesses saw a man who they believed was Lee Harvey Oswald participate in them. While no absolute evidence exists to explain this curiosity, it is not unreasonable to hypothesize that someone impersonating Oswald went to great lengths to focus attention on himself during the three weeks prior to the assassination.

When one piece of evidence that favors Lee Harvey Oswald's guilt is piled atop another, and another, and another.... I just was curious as to how many pieces of individual evidence that show Oswald killed JFK in 1963 it takes to sway a person away from the notion of conspiracy? Or, if nothing else, sway that person away from the "Oswald is completely innocent" claims?

From everything I can see, it's a veritable mountain of "Oswald Is Guilty" evidence (both circumstantial and physical). And not a single speck of it has been shown to be refutable with 100% absolute certainty.

Does the average researcher just simply ignore all of the evidence that supports Oswald's lone guilt (and every bit of hard evidence supports it), or is the idea of "it must have been a conspiracy" so ingrained into subsequent generations of people since the event took place that they feel they have no choice BUT to go with the flow and believe the CTers?

For I ask you HOW could ALL of the following evidence against Oswald have been either fabricated, planted, distorted, or in some manner faked?! There's just TOO MUCH stuff here on the "Oswald Did It" table to ignore! Granted, I'd agree that perhaps one or two of these things could have been manufactured to set up a patsy. But ALL of these items?! And complete silence be maintained by the many, many operatives who must certainly have been involved in the acts themselves and ensuing 40-year cover-up?!! Common sense (to me) dictates otherwise. And the "otherwise" leads anybody who isn't prone to cry "Conspiracy!" at every turn in the road to finally envision the fact that LHO was a lone nut who DID indeed pull off what the majority of people say couldn't happen in a million years.....He murdered John F. Kennedy without the assistance of others in late 1963 in Dallas, Texas.

The evidence against Oswald includes these subtle tidbits...........

1.) Oswald definitely owned the rifle found on the 6th floor of the TSBD on 11/22.

2.) He also definitely owned the handgun that was shown to have been used in the Tippit killing.

3.) Marina admits to having taken pictures of Lee with these weapons on his person.

4.) Wesley Frazier observed Oswald take a package into the Depository on the morning of November 22nd, 1963.

5.) Oswald's claim of "curtain rods" within the package cannot be supported at all. His room needed no curtains, nor rods, and NO such rods were ever found in the TSBD or at 1026 N. Beckley. Nor was LHO seen carrying any type of package (rods or otherwise) out of the building after leaving work (unannounced to anyone) after the assassination. It can therefore be reasonably assumed that no rods ever existed.

6.) Oswald was seen working on the sixth floor that morning. Co-workers sent the elevator back up to Oswald on the 6th floor shortly before the assassination.

7.) Oswald's palmprint found on Carcano rifle. .... But, of course, this print is really just a "bonus" for the DPD in linking LHO to the weapon. For even without it, it's glaringly obvious that the weapon was Oswald's. It was proved the alias, Alek/Alex Hidell, was actually Oswald himself; and the order form from Klein's to purchase the mail-order rifle was positively proven to have been in Oswald's handwriting, and sent to a Dallas P.O. Box that was used by him. Obviously, just LHO's owning the rifle doesn't prove he pulled the trigger. But doesn't just plain ordinary garden-variety logic dictate (with a pretty good percentage of probability) that it was the owner of said weapon, a Mr. Lee H. Oswald, that fired the shots on 11/22. The alternative is to believe that Oswald, for some unknown reason, handed over his Carcano to someone else for the purpose of using it. Why would he knowingly have done this idiotic act, knowing full well what might be the implications of doing so?!

8.) Not ONE SPECK of any bullets/bullet fragments/bullet shells OTHER THAN OSWALD'S 6.5 MM MANNLICHER-CARCANO were discovered anywhere in Dealey Plaza, the limousine, the TSBD, Parkland Hospital, or in the victims. This one, to me, is simply impossible for conspiracy advocates to overcome, IF there had been (as some claim) up to 3 firing teams and 6 shots fired in DP on Nov. 22nd. HOW could every single scrap of ballistics evidence be completely eradicated from the 2 (or more) non-Oswald weapons almost immediately after the event?! Couldn't have been accomplished by even Kreskin!! .... Plus: This massive task of removing all non-Oswald wounds & bullets would most certainly have had to include the many doctors who worked on BOTH the President and Gov. Connally at Parkland. PLUS it would include the multitude of people who observed the body at Bethesda (unless you subscribe to the totally-implausible accounts of body-altering and all that business aboard AF1, or elsewhere before the body got to Washington. Again, even Kreskin would be amazed by such incredible sleight-of-hand). .... ALL ballistic evidence was traced back to being consistent with the weapon owned by Lee H. Oswald. The probability of this occurring IF there were multiple guns firing at the motorcade is probably so low to be considered virtually impossible.

9.) Over 90% of the Dealey witnesses said shots came from behind the President, in the direction of the School Book Depository building. NINETY per cent plus! Now, HOW could THAT MANY people all be mistaken. Are we to actually believe the much-fewer number of 9%-10% of ear/eyewitnesses that claimed to hear shots from the front? That is illogical on its face. If 9 out of 10 people say it happened a certain way....WHY would the claims of the minority 10% be taken as gospel? Makes no sense! .... In addition, over 95% of this 90%+ claim there were EXACTLY three shots. No more, no less. And three spent shells (co-incidentally?) were found in the "sniper's nest" on the sixth floor. Now, do we ignore the overwhelming 95% of earwitnesses on this crucial point? Or do we stretch the imagination and for some reason trust the lowly number of 5% of the people who claim 4 or more shots?

10.) Oswald only ONCE made a weeknight visit to Irving. That just happened to be on Thursday, November 21, 1963. His rifle is found missing the following day.

11.) Oswald left behind, presumably for wife Marina, his wedding ring and just about every dime he had to his name ($100+), on the morning of 11/22. Logic dictates that he felt he may not return.

12.) Oswald was the only Depository employee to leave work prematurely on 11/22. Why do you suppose this was? The day was only half over.

13.) Oswald, in flight, shoots & kills DPD Office J.D. Tippit (multiple witnesses confirm it was Oswald, with very few variations of description). Once more, are we to accept the minority of people who state: "It was a larger man" or "There were two people", rather than believe the majority of people who claim, uncategorically, that OSWALD SHOT TIPPIT?! Why does the minority get such a benefit of the doubt in so many aspects of this case....while the huge, eye-popping majority (which favor the Oswald-Did-It stance) is subject to such scrutiny. By sheer numbers, wouldn't the lowly 5% or 10% on this & that be scrutinized with a far more wary eye? I certainly would think so.

14.) WHY does Oswald kill Officer Tippit IF he's innocent of another crime just minutes earlier in Dealey Plaza? Answer: He would have no such reason to do so. If the Tippit shooting isn't one of the biggest reasons to shout from the rooftops "Oswald did it!!", then I don't know what would be.

15.) Oswald, just days after acquiring his Carcano weapon, attempts to murder retired General Edwin Walker in Dallas, in April of '63, barely missing out on killing his third victim during the year 1963. Marina Oswald herself testifies that "Lee told me...he just shot Walker." The Walker bullet is proven to have come from the Oswald rifle (consistent with being fired from a 6.5 MM Carcano). ..... Another KEY fact is the Walker attempt, as I think any reasonable person looking at the case objectively would concur. For, it displays in Oswald a definite tendency toward violent action on his part during the months leading up to November 22nd. To me, it's not a wild stretch of one's imagination to think that if this guy is willing to bump off Walker, then he might just set his sights a little higher when the perfect opportunity presents itself 7 months later. The fact that Oswald was a kind of loner, oddball, and rejected authority at just about every turn in life cannot be underestimated when talking of motive. He probably hated America (in general terms) for not being able to just come and go as he pleased to Russia and Cuba whenever it pleased his self-serving self in the months just prior to November 22. As a former Marine acquaintance of Oswald's once said: "He always thought he was a little better than everyone else." This statement speaks volumes, in my opinion, when gazing into Oswald's background and possible motive in the JFK murder.

16.) It was PROVEN, no matter what anybody WANTS to believe to the contrary, that three shots COULD be fired in the allotted timeframe from the Oswald rifle. The probability that Oswald had, in fact, 8.1 to 8.2 seconds to accomplish the shooting further increases the likelihood that Lee could have performed the deed. IF you believe the first (missed) shot hit a tree branch and ricocheted to strike James Tague by the underpass at approx. Frame 160 of the Zapruder film (as I, of course, do), then the total time between shots #1 and #3 increases to more than eight seconds, much more than the minimum required of 2.3 seconds (times two) to get off the three shots.

17.) Try as the CTers might, the Single Bullet Theory has still not been proven to be an impossibility. The Zapruder film shows that the SBT is more-than-likely the correct scenario of events that day. Kennedy & Connally are reacting to their initial wounds at virtually an identical time, at Z-Frame 224. Unfortunately, that damn Stemmons sign is blocking our view during what might be a critical point on the film. It can therefore NEVER be determined by anybody whether JFK was reacting to his throat/neck wound at a frame earlier than Z224. But, based on the available evidence, the SBT (judging by the reactions of the two victims in the limo) most certainly cannot be said to be false.

18.) While viewing the Zapruder film, I cannot see how anybody can say that the BACK of President Kennedy's head is blown away as a result of the head shot. It seems quite obvious while watching and freezing the film at various post-Z313 frames, that the entire rear portion of JFK's head remains intact throughout the shooting. The RIGHT-FRONT portion of his head is blown apart. Isn't it obvious that it's the FRONTAL portion of his skull that is being displaced by the swiftly-moving projectile? And if so, doesn't this demonstrate the actions of an object that's just been struck from BEHIND, not from the front? For, if shot from the grassy knoll (front right), WHY isn't there evidence on the Z-Film of massive head damage on the President's LEFT-REAR side of the head? Bullets explode out the EXIT wounds, don't they?

19.) It was also proven that Oswald could have indeed trekked, in 90 seconds, the distance across the sixth floor and descended the 4 stories in time to have been seen on the building's second floor. Oswald was a thin, lean-enough sort of 24-year-old lad (who had by November 22nd become used to lifting heavy objects around all day long on a two-wheeled cart at his job at the Depository). To me, it doesn't seem like a fairy tale to say that he would have been able to hide the weapon quickly and then negotiate the fours flights of stairs within a 90-second timeframe and NOT be out of breath, so he could encounter Officer Marrion Baker and Roy Truly on the second floor in a relatively composed and unrattled state at 12:31-12:32 PM (CST) on November 22nd. I wonder, too, considering what had just happened outside on Elm Street, just exactly how much detailed attention Mr. Baker or Mr. Truly might have been paying to Lee Oswald's "breathing" during that very brief meeting in the 2nd-floor lunchroom. I'd be willing to bet neither paid an ounce of attention to a detail like that at that exact stressful moment. Lee was just another employee in the lunchroom for all those two knew at 12:32 PM.

David, I take it that since you have listed your irrifutable evidence, you are welcoming challenge? Let me travel to the darkside (to the defense table) for a moment and see what we come up with.

1.) Oswald definitely owned the rifle found on the 6th floor of the TSBD on 11/22.

I would not challenge this, but I do question why someone who is not suffering from retardation would choose such a rifle at this price through mail order when they could pick up a Mauser lets say over the counter in Texas without paperwork for a similar price.

2.) He also definitely owned the handgun that was shown to have been used in the Tippit killing.

I will not challenge him owning the .38 he was picked up with but be careful on stating it was shown to be linked to the Tippit Killing. Take another look at the ballistics.

3.) Marina admits to having taken pictures of Lee with these weapons on his person.

Marina did not know a rifle from a shotgun and the photos she admitted taking were from a different angle in the backyard photos.

4.) Wesley Frazier observed Oswald take a package into the Depository on the morning of November 22nd, 1963.

Not a problem here.

5.) Oswald's claim of "curtain rods" within the package cannot be supported at all. His room needed no curtains, nor rods, and NO such rods were ever found in the TSBD or at 1026 N. Beckley. Nor was LHO seen carrying any type of package (rods or otherwise) out of the building after leaving work (unannounced to anyone) after the assassination. It can therefore be reasonably assumed that no rods ever existed.

So it must have been the Carcano he was carrying, eh. And who exactly saw Oswald leave the building empty handed?

6.) Oswald was seen working on the sixth floor that morning. Co-workers sent the elevator back up to Oswald on the 6th floor shortly before the assassination.

Careful with the term "shortly before the assassination. Vague and challenging as I will address below.

7.) Oswald's palmprint found on Carcano rifle. .... But, of course, this print is really just a "bonus" for the DPD in linking LHO to the weapon. For even without it, it's glaringly obvious that the weapon was Oswald's. It was proved the alias, Alek/Alex Hidell, was actually Oswald himself; and the order form from Klein's to purchase the mail-order rifle was positively proven to have been in Oswald's handwriting, and sent to a Dallas P.O. Box that was used by him. Obviously, just LHO's owning the rifle doesn't prove he pulled the trigger. But doesn't just plain ordinary garden-variety logic dictate (with a pretty good percentage of probability) that it was the owner of said weapon, a Mr. Lee H. Oswald, that fired the shots on 11/22. The alternative is to believe that Oswald, for some unknown reason, handed over his Carcano to someone else for the purpose of using it. Why would he knowingly have done this idiotic act, knowing full well what might be the implications

In regards to the palmprint, it was found on the underside of the barrel that was covered by the wood forend that is only exposed after the forend/stock group is removed. I will not refute that Oswald ordered the rifle or even possessed it at one time so having his partial palm print in this location simply shows that he had taken the rifle down at one time, and obviously not on the sixth floor of the TSBD on 11/22/63. Why were no other identifiable prints found on the weapon. The excuse given was the wood would not hold prints but we are led to accept that the gunsteele would. Placed immediately into a controlled environment, these prints would last less than 24 hours with the methods they used for lifting in 1963. This rifle was kept on the 6th floor of the TSBD for over an hour and then paraded through the halls and at press conference at DPD before the print was lifted. You state it would be idiotic for him to loan the rifle out, but accept it normal that he would leave it behind on the sixth floor after the shooting?

8.) Not ONE SPECK of any bullets/bullet fragments/bullet shells OTHER THAN OSWALD'S 6.5 MM MANNLICHER-CARCANO were discovered anywhere in Dealey Plaza, the limousine, the TSBD, Parkland Hospital, or in the victims. This one, to me, is simply impossible for conspiracy advocates to overcome, IF there had been (as some claim) up to 3 firing teams and 6 shots fired in DP on Nov. 22nd. HOW could every single scrap of ballistics evidence be completely eradicated from the 2 (or more) non-Oswald weapons almost immediately after the event?! Couldn't have been accomplished by even Kreskin!! .... Plus: This massive task of removing all non-Oswald wounds & bullets would most certainly have had to include the many doctors who worked on BOTH the President and Gov. Connally at Parkland. PLUS it would include the multitude of people who observed the body at Bethesda (unless you subscribe to the totally-implausible accounts of body-altering and all that business aboard AF1, or elsewhere

There is an issue called crime scene preservation in regards to the plaza and the limo. Neither was followed. The plaza was immediately opened up after the assassination and there is no record of any ballistic material located, not even the governments errant round that struck the curb and wounded Tague. There are photos of the limo being washed out with a sponge and bucket at Parkland. The Parkland Doctors do not do any procedure that would allow discovery of such material. There are reports from witnesses at Bethesda of a bullet being located and also FBI Agent O'neil taking possession of a missle from the body of the president. Where is either of those. I move to strike this entire issue of ballistic evidence.

9.) Over 90% of the Dealey witnesses said shots came from behind the President, in the direction of the School Book Depository building. NINETY per cent plus! Now, HOW could THAT MANY people all be mistaken. Are we to actually believe the much-fewer number of 9%-10% of ear/eyewitnesses that claimed to hear shots from the front? That is illogical on its face. If 9 out of 10 people say it happened a certain way....WHY would the claims of the minority 10% be taken as gospel? Makes no sense! .... In addition, over 95% of this 90%+ claim there were EXACTLY three shots. No more, no less. And three spent shells (co-incidentally?) were found in the "sniper's nest" on the sixth floor. Now, do we ignore the overwhelming 95% of earwitnesses on this crucial point? Or do we stretch the imagination and for some reason trust the lowly number of 5% of the people who claim 4 or more shots?

Please cite your source on this. Stewart Galanor in his book Cover-Up cites 216 witnesses where of the 216, 212 are documented in the WC hearings and evidence while another four are from Mark Lane's interviews. Of those 216, they break down the shot origin as follows: TSBD=47, Knoll=53, TSBD&Knoll=6, Elsewhere=5, Not asked=70, Could not determine location=35. Now how are you getting 90+%?

10.) Oswald only ONCE made a weeknight visit to Irving. That just happened to be on Thursday, November 21, 1963. His rifle is found missing the following day.

Careful here. How long had he worked at the TSBD before the assassination? Does that lighten the blow here. Just because the rifle was found missing the following day, doesn't mean it was there on the 21st even the previous week. Can you give me a timeline on when it was last seen in the Payne garage?

11.) Oswald left behind, presumably for wife Marina, his wedding ring and just about every dime he had to his name ($100+), on the morning of 11/22. Logic dictates that he felt he may not return.

And this is the same man who walked away from the shooting and would have to survive on nothing after the shooting. If you were going to take on this task, wouldn't you have some finances with you for a getaway for a period? Now what you are reporting sounds stranger than ever.

12.) Oswald was the only Depository employee to leave work prematurely on 11/22. Why do you suppose this was? The day was only half over.

Actually there were seven not accounted for and four were found to be off work that day. Still leaves us three, but Oswald became the immediate suspect anyway.

13.) Oswald, in flight, shoots & kills DPD Office J.D. Tippit (multiple witnesses confirm it was Oswald, with very few variations of description). Once more, are we to accept the minority of people who state: "It was a larger man" or "There were two people", rather than believe the majority of people who claim, uncategorically, that OSWALD SHOT TIPPIT?! Why does the minority get such a benefit of the doubt in so many aspects of this case....while the huge, eye-popping majority (which favor the Oswald-Did-It stance) is subject to such scrutiny. By sheer numbers, wouldn't the lowly 5% or 10% on this & that be scrutinized with a far more wary eye? I certainly would think so.

Dissenting witnesses leave reasonable doubt and then we add the rediculous line-up he was in, which wouldn't get into a court of law.

14.) WHY does Oswald kill Officer Tippit IF he's innocent of another crime just minutes earlier in Dealey Plaza? Answer: He would have no such reason to do so. If the Tippit shooting isn't one of the biggest reasons to shout from the rooftops "Oswald did it!!", then I don't know what would be.

Still haven't proven by any stretch, let alone a reasonable doubt that he killed Tippet.

15.) Oswald, just days after acquiring his Carcano weapon, attempts to murder retired General Edwin Walker in Dallas, in April of '63, barely missing out on killing his third victim during the year 1963. Marina Oswald herself testifies that "Lee told me...he just shot Walker." The Walker bullet is proven to have come from the Oswald rifle (consistent with being fired from a 6.5 MM Carcano). ..... Another KEY fact is the Walker attempt, as I think any reasonable person looking at the case objectively would concur. For, it displays in Oswald a definite tendency toward violent action on his part during the months leading up to November 22nd. To me, it's not a wild stretch of one's imagination to think that if this guy is willing to bump off Walker, then he might just set his sights a little higher when the perfect opportunity presents itself 7 months later. The fact that Oswald was a kind of loner, oddball, and rejected authority at just about every turn in life canno

Take another look at the Walker shooting and see how it compares on degree of difficulty with the Kennedy Assassination. It still amazes me that people are accepting this.

16.) It was PROVEN, no matter what anybody WANTS to believe to the contrary, that three shots COULD be fired in the allotted timeframe from the Oswald rifle. The probability that Oswald had, in fact, 8.1 to 8.2 seconds to accomplish the shooting further increases the likelihood that Lee could have performed the deed. IF you believe the first (missed) shot hit a tree branch and ricocheted to strike James Tague by the underpass at approx. Frame 160 of the Zapruder film (as I, of course, do), then the total time between shots #1 and #3 increases to more than eight seconds, much more than the minimum required of 2.3 seconds (times two) to get off the three shots.

Who couldn't fire three shots in 5.4 seconds with a bolt action rifle. The problem is, doing so with accuracy. Hathcock and his crew couldn't, nor could anyone else with the same degrees of difficulty of moving target, elevation, etc.. When researchers show that this could not be done, the LNers suddenly come up with another 3 seconds to see if it will fly.

17.) Try as the CTers might, the Single Bullet Theory has still not been proven to be an impossibility. The Zapruder film shows that the SBT is more-than-likely the correct scenario of events that day. Kennedy & Connally are reacting to their initial wounds at virtually an identical time, at Z-Frame 224. Unfortunately, that damn Stemmons sign is blocking our view during what might be a critical point on the film. It can therefore NEVER be determined by anybody whether JFK was reacting to his throat/neck wound at a frame earlier than Z224. But, based on the available evidence, the SBT (judging by the reactions of the two victims in the limo) most certainly cannot be said to be false.

But has it been proven to work? Has it ever been duplicated? The proof lies in the prosecution, and it is a joke.

18.) While viewing the Zapruder film, I cannot see how anybody can say that the BACK of President Kennedy's head is blown away as a result of the head shot. It seems quite obvious while watching and freezing the film at various post-Z313 frames, that the entire rear portion of JFK's head remains intact throughout the shooting. The RIGHT-FRONT portion of his head is blown apart. Isn't it obvious that it's the FRONTAL portion of his skull that is being displaced by the swiftly-moving projectile? And if so, doesn't this demonstrate the actions of an object that's just been struck from BEHIND, not from the front? For, if shot from the grassy knoll (front right), WHY isn't there evidence on the Z-Film of massive head damage on the President's LEFT-REAR side of the head? Bullets explode out the EXIT wounds, don't they?

Take another look at the breakdown GIFs of Zapruder Film and other films on the forum and the back of the head blowout is visible. I do agree that the knoll shot would result in damage to the left rear, but who says the shot from the front came from the knoll? Others do, I don't and I have explained my shot origin. In #9, I refer to Stewart Galanor's collection of witness material on shot origin. What needs to be considered is that many of the witnesses that are put into the Knoll catagory actually say the area of the knoll and overpass. Before you accept a shot from the rear, take a look at the test skulls of CE861 and CE862. These are the best of six that were shot. Note the frontal lobe damage that is inconsistent with Kennedy. Also take a look at Dr. Latimer's skull that he felt was consistent.

19.) It was also proven that Oswald could have indeed trekked, in 90 seconds, the distance across the sixth floor and descended the 4 stories in time to have been seen on the building's second floor. Oswald was a thin, lean-enough sort of 24-year-old lad (who had by November 22nd become used to lifting heavy objects around all day long on a two-wheeled cart at his job at the Depository). To me, it doesn't seem like a fairy tale to say that he would have been able to hide the weapon quickly and then negotiate the fours flights of stairs within a 90-second timeframe and NOT be out of breath, so he could encounter Officer Marrion Baker and Roy Truly on the second floor in a relatively composed and unrattled state at 12:31-12:32 PM (CST) on November 22nd. I wonder, too, considering what had just happened outside on Elm Street, just exactly how much detailed attention Mr. Baker or Mr. Truly might have been paying to Lee Oswald's "breathing" during that very brief meetin

And how did Oswald make it down to the 2nd floor lunchroom. The elevators were on the fifth floor when Baker got to the elevator bank. There were SF employees on the stairs that did not see Oswald or anyone else descend them.

I hope you understand that if you are going to prosecute this man, you need to prove beyond a reasonable doubt. Haven't even come close here. And I haven't mention the GSR tests on his cheek that were negative. Kind of tough to fire a rifle with a cheek weld and not get a positive test. That alone says enough.

I am among those who contend Oswald was not supposed to be captured alive, but am not among those who suspect he was to be killed "while resisting arrest," or anywhere near the crime scene.

If we comb through the fragments on display in the official documentary record, we find residual traces of what I contend was the intended plot, which was in some ways markedly different from events that actually transpired.

Oswald's dalliance with the FPCC culminated in precisely the result that was intended. He was identified in the media at the time as a pro-Castro firebrand, trying to do the unthinkable by recruiting FPCC supporters in New Orleans. Had it been a genuine effort on his part to actually recruit members, he presumably wouldn't have listed incorrect addresses on the recruiting leaflets. On the occasion he distributed those leaflets without being arrested, he did so only for about 15 minutes, just long enough to be photographed and noticed. On the occasion he distributed those leaflets and was arrested for clashing with Bringuier and his cohorts, even the arresting officer opined that the fracas had been staged. Rather than represent the FPCC, Oswald disobeyed every legitimate direction received by him from the NYC FPCC HQ. Instead of building a local chapter, his only achievement was registering on the local media radar, including filmed TV footage and a radio debate.

Leaving aside questions of impersonation for a moment, Oswald's approaches to the Cuban and Soviet embassies in Mexico City were equally fraudulent and self-defeating. According to the testimony taken from staff at each, Oswald seemed wholly ignorant of travel restrictions imposed on US citizens traveling to either country. Yet the real Oswald was well aware of all the bureaucratic red tape that this entailed, for he had already experienced same in his travels to the USSR, and in his repatriation. To bolster his eligibility for a travel visa, the Mexico City Oswald purportedly presented a brand new CPUSA membership card [LHO was not a member], which embassy staff found odd, since special allowances were made for CPUSA members, none of whom had ever needed to brandish a card to receive that special consideration. Oswald also allegedly presented a New Orleans newspaper article with a photograph of him being arrested. No such genuine newspaper article was ever published, according to the extant record. Again, this was not a genuine attempt to receive a travel visa; it was merely an opportunity to register him as a visitor to enemy embassies, and during once such visit to meet with a Soviet named Kostikov who would only later be "unmasked" as an expert in assassination and murder.

The incidents at Redbird airport in Dallas were staged for a purpose. An "Oswald" was sighted there prior to the assassination, as part of a group seeking to charter an airplane for 11/22/63. A plane sat idling for an hour or more on the Redbird tarmac in the early afternoon of 11/22/63, then eventually left. Subsequently, special attention was paid to an incoming small aircraft in Mexico City, and the alleged transfer of a single passenger to a Cubana Airlines flight that had been delayed there, as though waiting only for that passenger. According to an obscure little footnote in Dick Russell's "The Man Who Knew Too Much," after the assassination CIA had discovered luggage at the Mexico City airport for one Lee Oswald.

When Oswald was arrested, I suggest that there was no ID in his wallet containing the name "Hidell." Had there been, one might have expected any of the arresting officers - several of whom were contemporaneously interviewed by the media - or any of the DPD hierarchy to have mentioned that fact. Upstanding citizens don't use an alias, and those who carry false ID are immediately suspect for that fact alone. Despite the received history on this aspect of the case, it wouldn't be for a full 24 hours that the name "Hidell" was first uttered by those who arrested Oswald and purportedly found "Hidell" ID on his person a the time.

In fact, I suggest that all the so-called "Hidell" ID was actually discovered in the wallet located at the Tippit crime scene. This is why the name "Hidell" entered the nomenclature of the crime only after the rifle had been traced back to a mail-order buyer using that name, via Oswald's PO box. It was only when Captain Fritz was confronted by two wallets, both ostensibly belonging to the same suspect, that this became problematic, as we'll soon see.

Taking the foregoing into account, let us assume that shortly after the assassination, the man known as Lee Harvey Oswald simply vanished. What would have been left behind, and what inferences would have been drawn from that residue?

The wallet at the Tippit crime scene would have disclosed that a man named Lee Harvey Oswald, who also used the alias "Hidell," had killed a policeman. In tracking down this man's whereabouts, DPD would have discovered - as they did - incriminating photographs of Oswald posing with weapons. After the rifle had been found in the TSBD, it would have been traced back to Klein's in Chicago, and from there to a buyer named "Hidell" at Oswald's PO box. In short order, Oswald's masquerade as a FPCC radical would have surfaced, along with his criminal arrest in New Orleans, and the subsequent TV and radio appearances in which he advocated strongly on behalf of Castro.

Soon thereafter, sources within the US government would have disclosed that Oswald had made approaches to two enemy embassies in Mexico City, and CIA would have revealed - as it did - that one person Oswald met there was in charge of Soviet assassination plotting in the western hemisphere.

At which point, it would have come to the public's attention that a light plane had left Redbird airport shortly after the assassination, that a plane of similar description had landed in Mexico City, and that a single passenger had deplaned and entered a waiting Cubana Airlines flight bound for Havana. Conveniently, that passenger would have been identified as Lee Oswald, based on luggage that had mistakenly been left behind there. [So central to the plot was this airplane story that even after Oswald's capture, the tale was subsequently retro-fitted so that the mystery passenger morphed into several other Cuban actors with purportedly strong Castro allegiances.]

Had Oswald simply disappeared and left behind this breadcrumb trail of evidence, what inescapable conclusions would have been drawn, and what would have been the official US response?

The assassination didn't transpire precisely as had been planned. Yes, it succeeded in killing the President. It failed, however, to deliver the ancillary benefits of placing direct blame upon the Havana despot, as had been hoped.

The single most critical failure in achieving that end was Oswald being arrested with his own wallet in his own pocket.

It has long been my contention that if Oswald was framed, as the majority here seem to argue, then it is by locating and examining the elements of that frameup, pre- and post-assassination, that we can identify both the methods employed and those responsible for executing it.

When I had a chance to discuss this in person with Peter Dale Scott, whose own hypothesis is slightly different, he asked me "If the purpose was to incite a military response against Cuba, why didn't it happen?" I replied that Oswald's arrest had derailed the most critical aspects of the plan, for the same reasons outlined above. Exemplifying intellectual impartiality, he agreed it was worthy of further consideration.

It is possible that Joannides was not presented with Oswald's name prior to the assassination, but the latest declassified records confirm that a half dozen other top CIA officials were aware of the itinerant ex-Marine and interested in his movements. In September 1963, a month after confronting Joannides's assets in New Orleans, Oswald went to Mexico City and visited the Cuban consulate, seeking a visa. He passed through a CIA surveillance program code-named LIERODE. He then visited the Soviet Embassy where his voice was picked up by a telephonic wiretapping program known as LIENVOY. (These recordings of Oswald, seized from the home office safe of Mexico City station chief Win Scott, were hidden from investigators and later destroyed.) Then, in November, after he returned to Dallas, Oswald wrote a letter to the Soviet Embassy in Washington about his contacts with the Cubans and Soviets in Mexico. The letter was opened by the FBI who shared it with the CIA's counterintelligence staff which had responsibility for tracking Soviet defectors.

John Newman, an Army intelligence analyst turned historian, was the first to parse the new records in his 1995 book Oswald and the CIA. "What we've learned since Stone's movie is that the CIA's interest in Oswald was a lot deeper than they have ever acknowledged," Newman wrote. "As Oswald made his way toward Dallas, the reporting about him was channeled into a file controlled by an office in the counterintelligence staff called the Special Investigations Group."

The SIG, as it was known, was the operational office of James Angleton, the first chief of counterintelligence for the CIA, a legendary controversial figure whose exploits inspired the movie The Good Shepherd. Some thought him a charming and brilliant theorist; others thought him a bully and a paranoid menace. "When Oswald shows up in Mexico City," Newman explains, "his file goes over to the Western Hemisphere division which reviews it and sends out a cable to the State Department and other agencies that is -- how can I put it? -- very selective."

This cable, dated October 10, 1963, is no smoking gun. But is one of the key new documents in the JFK paper trail whose significance is not appreciated by the mainstream media or the furious partisans of the JFK chat groups. The cable, not fully declassified until 2002, was sent after a CIA surveillance microphone picked up Oswald's name during his conversations with the Cubans and Russians in Mexico City. "Who was Oswald?" station chief Scott asked headquarters. "We don't know," replied Langley in the cable. The "latest HDQS info," dated May 1962, was that Oswald was returning from the Soviet Union and had matured politically. In fact, that was not the CIA's latest information, as one of Angleton's aides admitted to the Washington Post in 1995. Acknowledging that she helped draft this cable, this aide said in a tape-recorded interview: "I'm signing off on something I know isn't true." What the cable's authors deliberately omitted, among other things, was mention of a September 1963 FBI report on Oswald's encounters with the DRE in New Orleans.

The most senior official to sign off on the inaccurate cable was Tom Karamessines, trusted assistant to CIA Deputy Director Helms. If Helms was a master spy, the man who kept the secrets, Karamessines was the dependable sidekick who helped him do it. Karamessines was also the patron of his fellow Greek American, Miami field man George Joannides.

The interest of these senior officials does not necessarily imply anything more sinister than a bureaucracy's natural tendency to cover its ass. The CIA had ample reason to be monitoring Oswald in late 1963. He publicly supported the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, a pro-Castro group, formally classified as a "subversive" organization by U.S. national security agencies. He attempted to travel to Cuba via Mexico, a signal of intent to violate U.S. law. Naturally, the Agency was paying attention. But for all this interest, no one thought to discuss Oswald with the Secret Service or the Dallas police. Little wonder that when the name of the suspect in the assassination was first heard at CIA headquarters in Langley, "the effect was electric," as one agency official put it, employing a phrase that was censored from public view for more than three decades.

What is clear is that Oswald was the person in whom the agency had taken considerable interest -- and whose interest it took considerable pains to cover up.

Now let us put the crime scene in a larger context, the context of CIA intelligence gathering and psychological warfare operations in late 1963. Let us return now to the man who didn't talk.

What was George Joannides's reaction to Oswald's appearance at the Dallas scene?

"We called him right away," says Tony Lanuza, a Miami businessman who was active in Cuban politics in 1963. He served as the coordinator for the far-flung delegations of the Cuban Student Directorate. When he and his friends heard that a man named Oswald had been arrested for killing Kennedy, Lanuza immediately recalled the confrontations between Carlos Bringuier and the obnoxious interloper from the Fair Play for Cuba Committee the previous August. They rushed to the Directorate's headquarters in South Miami, where someone called their CIA contact to inform him the group had evidence about the communistic ways of Kennedy's killer.

Joannides's first impulse was to consult with his superiors, two months before the DRE was recruiting assassins to kill Castro. What did they know about Oswald was one question that an intelligence officer might want answered.

"He told us to wait an hour," Lanuza recalls. "He had to consult with Washington."

The DRE started calling reporters anyway with the scoop on Kennedy's killer. He was a communist and a Castro supporter. A headline in the DRE's newspaper the next day described Oswald and Castro as "the presumed assassins." When Joannides called back, he told them to take their evidence to the FBI.

The CIA man apparently did not investigate Oswald's Cuban contacts. No former DRE leader can recall any conversations with Joannides about the accused assassin. Joannides did not account for the contacts between the AMSPELL network and the accused assassin, at least not according to the available CIA records. His role as sponsor of Oswald's Cuban antagonists was not disclosed to the Warren Commission. He preserved the U.S. government's ability to "plausibly deny" any connection to the Cuban students who publicized Oswald's pro-Castro ways.

All the while, the DRE leaders continued to feed JFK information to Joannides. The group's records from early 1964 include several memos to CIA contact "Howard" about Jack Ruby's Cuban connections. From New Orleans, Carlos Bringuier sent a report about the ongoing Warren Commission investigation there. That too was passed to Joannides.

On April 1, 1964, the Warren Commission sent Carlos Bringuier a letter informing him that a commission staff would be contacting him soon about taking his testimony about the DRE and Oswald. According to a CIA travel form made public in 2004, Joannides, the DRE's case officer and an attorney, traveled from Miami to New Orleans that same day for unknown reasons.

For the rest of his career, Joannides would be commended for his actions around events related to the Kennedy assassination.

In May 1964, his bosses praised him as a "hard-working, dedicated and effective officer" with a flair for political action operations. His annual job evaluation made no mention of the fact that his AMSPELL assets had tried and failed to call attention to the man who apparently killed Kennedy or that his young friends in the DRE were using agency funds to allege that Oswald acted at Castro's behest. Joannides received the highest possible marks for his service in 1963.

He went on to serve in Athens, Saigon and CIA headquarters. In 1979, after Joannides stonewalled congressional investigators about his knowledge of Oswald he received praise from CIA director Stansfield Turner and other top agency officials. "He was the perfect man for the job," said one.

Two years ago, the CIA acknowledged in a court filing that Joannides had received an even greater honor upon retirement. In March 1981, he received the Career Intelligence Medal, bestowed for "career contributions" to the Agency.

Why Joannides was honored after his Oswald cover-up remains a secret -- for reasons of "national security." In September 2006 federal judge Richard Leon upheld the CIA's arguments in a Freedom of Information lawsuit that it did not have to release the JFK material in Joannides's file. The National Archives then requested the Joannides files from the Agency earlier this year. As of late October 2007, the CIA was still resisting disclosure.

So what can one safely and reliably conclude about the JFK story today?

On the crime scene evidence, reasonable people will differ. To me, the single bullet theory, the forensic linchpin of all arguments for Oswald's sole guilt, has lost scientific validity in the past decade via both Pat Grant and Erik Randich's ballistics analysis and via the sworn testimony of FBI agents Sibert and O'Neill.

The JFK medical evidence is much less trustworthy than was known a decade ago. Photographs have been culled from the collection. Multiple new witnesses say independently and under oath that Kennedy's body and wounds were cleaned up before being photographed for the record. Any indictment of Oswald based on the medical evidence of Kennedy's wounds has been undermined.

The acoustic evidence remains in dispute. In my view, it has not been disqualified until an alternative explanation for the order in the data is confirmed.

The new JFK forensic science, in short, has narrowed the limits of plausible conjecture by eliminating the single bullet theory as an explanation of Kennedy and Connally's wounds and by not eliminating the possibility that the fatal shot was fired from the grassy knoll.

The best minds in forensic science might be able to clarify things, Pat Grant told me in an e-mail following our interview. Grant admitted that he and probably most other experts in the most advanced forensic techniques are not up to date on the acoustic evidence and other JFK evidentiary specimens.

"The evidence should be viewed and examined by a select group of forensic scientists, by invitation only, that best represents the most advanced forensic methods possible today," Grant wrote, adding, "These cannot be encompassed solely by the practices of today's criminalistics labs." He proposed these scientists prepare "a summary report detailing prioritized recommendations for ensuing analyses, their estimations for success of each recommended analysis and the anticipated information to be gained from each."

As for the new JFK evidence from CIA archives, that too awaits clarification. Some of the most basic questions about George Joannides -- what did he know about Oswald and when did he know it? -- cannot be answered as long as the Agency withholds his files from public view. The CIA's insistence, 44 years later, that it cannot declassify those files for reasons of "national security," not only encourages the notion the Agency is still hiding something significant, it also reminds us of the infuriating truth. When it comes to the JFK story we know a lot more than we did a decade ago: We know we still don't have the full story.

Talking to Lee was a balm for his raw nerves, a sincere conversation calmed him down and it wasn't bad for me either. Fortunately I remember well so much of what he said. I remember distinctly that one of those evenings together we talked of John F. Kennedy. Lee liked him and certainly did not include him among those despicable politicians he mentioned before. I showed him President's picture of the cover of Time Magazine and Lee said -"How handsome he looks, what open and sincere features he has and how different he looks from the other ratty politicians."

I don't remember exactly the words but Lee spoke most kindly of the gradual improvement of the racial relations in the United States, attributing this improvement to the President. Like most young people he was attracted by the Kennedy's personality but he also knew that JFK's father was a rascal who made money off whisky and being bullish on the stock-market which is betting against this country's economy.

Lee often mentioned that the two party system did not work well, that other points of view were not represented. He did not see the difference between a conservative democrat and a fairly liberal republican - and in that I agreed with him.

"Both republicans and democrats really did not oppose each other," he mentioned one day, "they do not represent different points of view, but they are both solidly against poor and oppressed."

But regarding JFK, Lee did not have such a gloomy attitude and he hoped that after the Bay of Pigs fiasco Kennedy would accept coexistence with the communist world...

I did not know Lee to be a dangerous man, a man who would kill like a maniac without any reason - with reason any man is a potential killer - and we proved that he was rather an admirer of Kennedy's. Lee's connections, when we knew him, were fairly liberal, equalitarian, not even communist but rather vague, Marxist beliefs. He did not try to influence me in any way nor did I try to exert any influence on him. "That's why it's so easy to be with you," said Lee one day, "everyone tries to influence me one way or another, in the Soviet Union, in Japan, here, and you leave me strictly alone."

I hope that this book will correct the generally low opinion people in this country have had on Lee. Maybe this new focus on him will have some influence on the ultimate judgement on the assassination of President Kennedy.

Lee Harvey Oswald might have been sometimes violent, like almost anyone amongst us, he might kill a person he hated, he might have been violent to a racist or a pseudo-racist, to someone who might want to hurt him and his family. But to assassinate the President he rather admired, just for the glory of it, is entirely foreign to his personality.

Lee cared for freedom in this country and he cared for the improvement of the world tension at the time. And this type of a person was benign moved from one place to another by the Dallas police, the movements were announced, the crowds were there, and thus he was shot and killed.

Some other aspects of Lee's personality must emerge from this book. It shows that Lee was not a harmful person, on the contrary a rather inspiring individual." his deep desire to improve relations between the United States and the Soviet Union. It took twelve years and a man like Kissinger to achieve partially this purpose. At last the latent animosities between these superpowers are dissipating.

But Lee hoped for more he hoped that these two powerful countries would become friends and he thrived to achieve it in a naive and maybe foolish, but sincere, way. It is clear now that the war between these two countries would end in a holocaust. And so, Lee Harvey Oswald had dreamed and hoped for a detente and for friendship, not so bad for a high-school dropout from a New Orleans slum.

It is always better for all of us to be friends than to fight, only insane people would want to fight now with the available nuclear arsenal. These insane people are forcing other to believe in the superiority of any weaponry. We can kill all the Russians hundred of times over and they can do the same to us. So where does a "superiority" lead?

It is my firm opinion that lee was never sure he was right, but he was always groping for truth, for a light.

It must come out clearly from all the material I had gathered here that Lee was above all anti-segregationist, he was anti any people who discriminate against any minorities, against any underprivileged.

Both Lee and I firmly believed that subservience to any dominant political idea is wrong, people should try to discover an ideology which fits them, even though it might be unpopular, and follow it. If not , we would become the same dummies Russians were during Stalin's time. Their servility backfired and they became victims of it. "They did not try to find out who was right and who was wring," Lee told me during one of our conversations, which often dealt with the Stalinist times in Russia. He had learned a lot in Minsk. "Free people," he had said, "should not remain mere pawns in the world game of chess played by the rulers."

Some time ago I saw a program, sponsored by some safety razor firm, which featured Lee talking in New Orleans on the radio. This was regarding his pro-Cuban activity. The program was taped and Lee's photos were inserted. Lee spoke rather intelligently but the inserted photos made his look ugly and threatening. It was a nasty way to portray a dead man. Technically the program was awful; had no much sense anyway, but its purpose was to brainwash the American people into believing more firmly that Lee was the sole and only assassin.

And we will never know the whole truth until someone will come forward, confess and will accept the guilt.

Let's recall some of my conversations with Lee regarding Fidel Castro. Lee was rather an admirer of Fidel and especially of Che Guevara, a romantic, swashbuckling personage. In his mind Fidel was a sincere man who aimed to the best for his country, to eradicate racial prejudice and to bring a social equality to his people. I do not think he knew very much about Cuba and his information came through his contacts with Cuban students and technicians he had met in Minsk.

Lee liked Fidel as a representative of a small country, an underdog, facing fearlessly a huge and powerful country like United States.

Che appealed to him as a handsome, brilliant doctor, who had traveled around Latin America, discovering basic injustices and who eventually tried to correct them . He did know that in some of the poorest parishes of Mexico the peasants considered him a new Savior. Now Che is dead, the man who killed him was assassinated recently in Paris. So it's all immaterial.

Regarding the Bay of Pigs, Lee thought it was an utter disaster. He was sure that we would not have gotten involved in the internal affairs of Cuba. He was against the Cuban refugees, but this subject was not discussed too much between us. He thought that Cuba before Castro was a whorehouse for the American tourists, headquarters of American racketeers like Lansky and Co. there were his opinions.

As far as I was concerned, I was not sure whether he was right or not, I knew Cuba very slightly myself, I was there a year or so before Castro's victory over Battista. To me it was a cheerful, corrupt country; but austerity did not seem to fit the Cuban sunny natures.

Lee thought President Kennedy should not allow any invasion of Cuba, but he was not revengeful or violent in his views on this subject. I have the impression that the matter was of not much interest to him. Lee never expressed any hatred for Kennedy because of the Bay of Pigs, he just calmly assessed as a very foolish action.

Remember that many Cuban refugees and their relatives paid with their lives for this invasion, and the ones who remained alive and here consider the disaster Kennedy's fault. I cannot visualize Lee being in cahoots with these Cuban refugees in New Orleans, as some sources suggest but he might have played his own game, meeting some of them, checking just for the hell of it what their motivations were.

The amusing and attractive side of Lee's personality was that he liked to play with his own life, he was an actor in real life. A very curious individual.

On the other hand, I can very easily visualize Lee joining a pro-Castro group.

In my humble opinion, as indicated by some events and conversations in this book, the Kennedy family did not want to pursue the matter of finding the real, unquestionable, assassin, nor a conspiracy. And they could have done it with their own, immense, privat resources. If somebody would kill my son or my brother, I certainly would want to be sure who did it. But possibly the personality of Lee Harvey Oswald suited perfectly the political purposes of the Kennedy family.

Lee was a "lunatic" and a "Marxist" who killed John F. Kennedy without any reason and made a martyr of him. And so, the matter was closed for ever. Why look for more responsible people?

During April, 1963, Vicente reports the contents of the FPCC bank statements from Chase for the months of January through April 1963. Lee is the person who can authorize withdrawal from the bank account. The FBI agents are still trying to develop volunteer Ed Linton as a source.

During this month, Victor Vicente stated that Vincent Lee had telephonically contacted him and asked that the NYC FPCC take care of the month's rent of the FPCC office.

Lee was on a speaking tour for the month of April, and assured his colleagues that Ed Linton would handle the office Monday-Wednesday, Lee’s wife Marjorie Speece would handle the office Thursday, and that the office would be closed on Friday. The FBI agents entered on April 21, 1963 - a Sunday. Lee's final words on the subject were that "Victor Vicente will handle anything of importance that happens during his absence."

4/18/63 is the postmark date of the letter sent from Dallas by Oswald to the national FPCC office in New York. An FBI memo about this letter refers to “photographs of the below listed material made available by NY 3245-S* on 4/21/63...in the event any of this material is disseminated outside the bureau, caution should be exercised to protect the source, NY 3245-S*, and the communication should be classified “Confidential”.

The FPCC notes stating that 50 pieces of literature were forwarded to LHO on 4/19/63. Lee informed the FBI that the notation was written by him - but all the evidence is that he was out of town at the time. It was a meaningless and stupid falsehood, and he was probably covering for his ally Vicente in an absent-minded fashion.

On 4/21/63, Vicente “made available records and correspondence currently maintained at FPCC Headquarters…Approximately 100 photographs were taken of this material…NYO will make appropriate dissemination when the film is developed.”

Hoover biographers Dr. Anthan G. Theoharis and John Stuart Cox have a copy of the FBI NY office’s “Surreptitious Entries” file, maintained “informally” in the SAC’s personal folder, which says that “the FBI did break into the FPCC offices during April, 1963".

On April 21, 1963, Vicente advised that Lee H. Oswald of Dallas, Texas, was in contact with FPCC of New York City, at which time LHO advised that he passed out pamphlets for the FPCC.