Thirty-year-old "Mac" Wallace stared intently at each of the 12 jurors as they filed into the still-as-a-tomb courtroom. As the solemn-faced men, weary from nine days of confinement and strain, took their seats in the jury box for the last time, bright sunlight flashed from Wallace's dark, horn rimmed glasses.

If there was tension within him when Court Clerk Pearl Smith cleared her throat to read the verdict, Wallace kept it out of sight. No trace of feeling crossed his face as the clerk read the verdict of the jury: guilty of murder with malice in the October gun slaying of Golf Professional "Doug" Kinser.

Still no expression when the sentence was read: five years in the State Penitentiary. Then came the recommendation - suspended sentence - and for a fleeting moment Wallace's mask broke. A faint smile played about the corners of his mouth....

Judge Charles O. Betts had warned that there would be no demonstration of any kind when the verdict was read. There was none; only a low "hum" in the half-filled courtroom.

At mid-afternoon on October 22, 1951, thirty-year old "Mac" Wallace drove up to the Pitch and Putt course, walked in on "Doug" Kinser at the keeper's house and shot him dead. Wallace fled, but was caught, indicted for murder with "malice aforethought," and released on $30,000 bond. Strangely, no counsel appeared for him at first; only William E. Carroll, "a university friend," who somehow arranged the bond - later reduced to $10,000; while Carroll refused to say who the counsel would be.

Strangely too, District Attorney Bob Long called in a psychiatrist. Wallace, arrogant throughout the hearing, refused to see him. Still with no attorney, but with his "University friend" contending he was being held "without cause," and with bond posted, District Judge Charles A. Betts issued a writ of habeas corpus and released him.

He was brought to trial in the 98th District Court of Travis County before Judge Betts, with John Cofer, Johnson's every ready and able lawyer in times of trouble, and Polk Shelton, as attorneys for the defense. Cofer was not unduly searching hi his examination of jurors, but qualified each on his attitude toward the "suspended sentence law".

The case went to trial. District Attorney Bob Long - notwithstanding the identity of the car, a bloody shirt and a cartridge of the same caliber as used in the shooting, found in Wallace's possession, and witnesses who heard the shots and saw the departure of a man who fit Wallace's description - described it as "a near perfect murder."

Wallace did not take the stand. No evidence was presented to suggest cause or extenuating circumstances. Cofer simply filed a brief, one-page motion for an instructed verdict, pleading that there was no evidence upon which the State could "legally base a judgment of guilt." Long said nothing whatever in rebuttal. After less than two hours of testimony which was shut off so "abruptly" that it "left the packed courtroom with jaws ajar." Long urged the jury to "punish punish Wallace in whatever degree you can agree upon."

Thus after one of the briefest and most perfunctory trials of a prominent murder case on record, even in Texas, the jury nonetheless found, March 27, 1952, that Wallace was, as charged, guilty "of murder with malice aforethought." Its penalty, a five-year suspended sentence - for murder in the first degree.

Long was on his way out of the courtroom while the verdict was being read. His staff seemed "dumbfounded," but his own comment to the press was no less strange than his action: "You win cases and you lose them... usually everything happens for the best." Somewhat understandable, therefore, was the comment of The Austin Statesman that this case, "marked from the start to finish by the unusual," had left the people of Austin shocked and "quizzical.''

In 1961, Wallace left Texas to go to Anaheim, Calif., to work for Ling Electronics. The change of jobs is what prompted the 1961 background check, said one of the former Navy intelligence officers. The officer, who conducted the background check, said "There was an investigation; that I can verify." He asked that his name not be used. The second Navy intelligence officer, who supervised the Texas end of the background check and now works in Dallas, confirmed that the report was compiled and forwarded to Washington.

Wallace had been active in politics while at the University of Texas, and authorities who investigated the Kinser murder said they found information linking Wallace to Communist Party activity in the United States, according to one investigator, who also wished that his name not be used.

Former Texas Ranger Clint Peoples, who investigated the Kinser murder, said the Navy intelligence officer who compiled the background report indicated to him in November 1961 that Johnson may have been a factor behind Wallace's employment with the defense contractors. "I was furious that they would even consider a security clearance for Wallace with the background he had," said Peoples, who is a U. S. Marshal in Dallas. "I asked him (the intelligence officer) how in the world Wallace could get the security clearance and he said 'politics," Peoples said. "I asked who could be so strong and powerful in politics that he could get a clearance for a man like this, and he said "the vice president."

Malcolm (Mac) Wallace led a life filled with contradictions and erratic turns of events. Before his 30th birthday he had been a star football player, a Marine, the president of the University of Texas student body, and a key organizer for Homer Rainey's 1946 gubernatorial campaign. He had also distinguished himself academically, having earned a master's degree and taught college economics, before accepting a research economist's job with the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Although classmates, colleagues. and family members describe Mac Wallace as a gifted intellectual and idealist. it is also known that he was a man of explosive temper and no stranger to physical violence: one week after his 30th birthday, Wallace walked into the clubhouse of an Austin golf course and ordered a pack of cigarettes from the attendant, Douglas Kinser. Kinser had been dating Wallace's wife, Andre. and to complicate matters, he had dated Josefa Johnson (Lyndon's sister), whom Wallace, too, had been seeing. Just before Kinser could ring up the sale, Wallace pulled out a .25-caliber pistol and pumped him with five bullets.

On February 26, 1952, a Travis County jury convicted Wallace of murder with malice but gave him only a five-year suspended sentence.

Not long after the trial, several of the jurors telephoned Doug Kinser's parents to apologize for voting for a suspended sentence, but said they did so only because threats had been made against their families, according to Al Kinser, a nephew of Kinser's who along with his father, still runs the Pitch and Putt golf course.

Three months after Mac Wallace walked out of the Travis County Courthouse. he went to work for Temco, Inc., in its electronics and missiles plant in Garland. Except for a short spell, he remained with the company until February of 1961. It was in January of that year, claims Billie Sol Estes, that Wallace, Billie Sol, Cliff Carter and Lyndon Johnson met at Johnson's house in Washington to discuss killing Henry Marshall. Little is known about Wallace's whereabouts that month, other than at some point he was arrested in Dallas for public drunkenness; it cannot be confirmed that Wallace was in Washington around the time of the inauguration - when the meeting supposedly took place.

But Wallace knew Cliff Carter. The two were in Washington together the previous summer, when Johnson was making a run for the 1960 presidential nomination. Wallace was seen at least three times at campaign functions, always accompanied by Cliff Carter, according to Lucianne Goldberg, who worked in the campaign press office. Goldberg recalled that Carter introduced her to Wallace in a hospitality suite at the Mayflower Hotel. "I just knew him and remember him because that was sort of what we were all about remembering everybody you meet, because you never knew where they were going to end up," said Goldberg, who was 23 and known as Lucy Cummings back then. "We were all on the make, as young people around politicians are."

Goldberg, now a literary agent in New York, told the Observer she noticed Wallace "a couple of times" at Johnson campaign headquarters at the Ambassador Hotel. "I'd be sitting at my desk and there'd be a lot of people milling around and I'd see him with his thumbs hooked into his belt the way those (Texas) guys do. " Goldberg could not recall any conversation she had with Wallace, "other than, 'wanna go have a drink,' that kind of thing, which I never did."

In February of 1961, four months before Henry Marshall's death, Wallace transferred from Garland to Ling Electronics in Anaheim, California, a subsidiary of Ling-Temco-Vought, where he worked as a manager in the purchasing department.

Wallace's transfer from Texas to California prompted a 1961 background check by the Office of Naval Intelligence. The investigation was to determine whether he qualified for a military contracting job that required a security clearance. Because he investigated the Kinser murder, Clint Peoples was interviewed about Wallace by the intelligence officer, A.J. Sullivan, in November of 1961. Peoples told Sullivan he considered Wallace "a bad security risk." Nevertheless. Wallace was issued the security clearance. Peoples said Sullivan told him that Lvndon Johnson may have played a role in Wallace's employment with Ling-Temco-Vought. "I was furious they would even consider a security clearance for Wallace with the background he had," Peoples said to the Observer. "I asked him how can you give a guy like this a clearance? He said. 'politics,' " Peoples said. "I asked who'd be so strong in politics to cause you to give this guy a clearance. He said, 'the vice president.' "

Sullivan said he does not recall the comment and said no one forced him to write a favorable report on Wallace. In any event, he added, he wasn't the one to decide whether to grant the security clearance. James J. Ling, Ling-Temco-Vought's founder, told the Observer he was friendly with Lyndon Johnson, but could not recall the name Malcolm Wallace nor whether Johnson may have recommended anyone for a job.

Madeleine Brown told us that "Wallace worked for Lyndon." Could this man's fierce loyalty to Johnson be the driving force that enabled him to commit murder? And if so, what was the reason for his loyalty?

Part of the answer lies in the death of John Kinser. Though some might find it hard to believe that Wallace was LBJ's "troubleshooter", history documents at least one murder that Wallace did commit. A murder that was likewise connected to Lyndon Johnson.

It is not precisely known what Wallace's motive was in killing john Kinser. Some say that Kinser, 33, was a man-about-town, who was having an affair with Malcolm's estranged wife. Others say that Malcolm Wallace was dating Josepha Johnson, LBJ's sister. There is speculation of a romantic rivalry between Wallace and Kinser, for the affections of Josepha, which led to the cold-blooded murder of Kinser on October 22, 1951.

Even though the motive is unclear, the facts of the murder seem to be well known. Wallace, according to the newspaper accounts, walked into the clubhouse at the Butler Pitch and Putt Golf Course in Austin, where Kinser worked. No one heard their short conversation, but several people heard the single "pop" from a .25 caliber pistol. Wallace was seen walking quickly from the scene with the gun in his hand. Even though the gun was never recovered, it was reported that Wallace was given the small caliber (.25 automatic) weapon years before, by an F.B.I. friend in Fort Worth.

Within an hour, Wallace was arrested nine miles from Austin. By strange coincidence, Clint Peoples was put in charge of the case. Working with Peoples was Detective Marion Lee. In a Dallas Times Herald article written by William P. Barrett, we found that the arresting officers heard Wallace say that he was working for "Mr. Johnson", and was anxious to get back to Washington. He was released on a $30,000 bond - later reduced to $10,000.

Detective Marion Lee, formerly with the Austin Police Department, said that when Wallace was arrested in 1951 on charges of killing John Douglas Kinser on an Austin golf course, Wallace told investigators "he was working for Mr. Johnson and (that's why) he had to get back to Washington."

At the time, Johnson was a U. S. senator and Wallace ostensibly was working as an economist for the U. S. Department of Agriculture. Still, said Lee, "He (Wallace) indicated to us that he worked in some office that was connected with Mr. Johnson."

Mr. Estes was a member of a four-member group, headed by Lyndon Johnson, which committed criminal acts in Texas in the 1960's. The other two, besides Mr. Estes and LBJ, were Cliff Carter and Mac Wallace. Mr. Estes is willing to disclose his knowledge concerning the following criminal offenses:

I. Murders

1. The killing of Henry Marshall

2. The killing of George Krutilek

3. The killing of Ike Rogers and his secretary

4. The killing of Harold Orr

5. The killing of Coleman Wade

6. The killing of Josefa Johnson

7. The killing of John Kinser

8. The killing of President J. F. Kennedy.

Mr. Estes is willing to testify that LBJ ordered these killings, and that he transmitted his orders through Cliff Carter to Mac Wallace, who executed the murders. In the cases of murders nos. 1-7, Mr. Estes' knowledge of the precise details concerning the way the murders were executed stems from conversations he had shortly after each event with Cliff Carter and Mac Wallace.

In addition, a short time after Mr. Estes was released from prison in 1971, he met with Cliff Carter and they reminisced about what had occurred in the past, including the murders. During their conversation, Carter orally compiled a list of 17 murders which had been committed, some of which Mr. Estes was unfamiliar. A living witness was present at that meeting and should be willing to testify about it. He is Kyle Brown, recently of Houston and now living in Brady, Texas.

Mr. Estes, states that Mac Wallace, whom he describes as a "stone killer" with a communist background, recruited Jack Ruby, who in turn recruited Lee Harvey Oswald. Mr. Estes says that Cliff Carter told him that Mac Wallace fired a shot from the grassy knoll in Dallas, which hit JFK from the front during the assassination.

A Texas Ranger, Clint Peoples, had befriended Estes and convinced him that he should come clean with the whole truth. True to his word, Estes agreed to appear before a Robertson County grand jury and clear the record concerning the cotton allotments, the death of Henry Marshall and the involvement of LBJ and others. He recounted the whole ugly picture - from the millions he had funnelled into Johnson's secret slush fund, to the illegal cotton allotment scheme, to the murder of Henry Marshall.

Estes testified that Lyndon Johnson, Cliff Carter (an aide of LBJ), Malcolm Wallace and himself met several times to discuss the issue of the "loose cannon" - Henry Marshall. Marshall had refused a LBJ-arranged promotion to Washington headquarters, and it was feared that he was about to talk. Johnson, according to Estes, finally said, "Get rid of him," and Malcolm "Mac" Wallace was given the assignment. According to testimony, Wallace followed Marshall to a remote area of his farm and beat him nearly unconscious. Then while trying to asphyxiate him with exhaust from Marshall's pickup truck, Wallace thought he heard someone approaching the scene, and hastily grabbed a rifle which customarily rested in the window rack of the truck. Quickly pumping five shots into Marshall's body, Wallace fled the scene.

A Texas-based assassination research group has publicly named a man believed to have left a previously unidentified fingerprint on a box making up the so-called "sniper's nest" on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository.

At a May 29 press conference in Dallas, researcher and author Walt Brown said that the fingerprints belong to Malcolm E. "Mac" Wallace, a convicted killer with ties to Lyndon Baines Johnson. The fingerprints have been officially unidentified since President Kennedy was assassinated in 1963.

Brown presented data showing a 14-point match between Wallace's fingerprint card, obtained from the Texas Department of Public Safety, and the previously unidentified print, a copy of which was kept in the National Archives. The match was made by A. Nathan Darby, an expert with certification by the International Association of Identifiers.

The Texas researchers forwarded their findings to the Dallas Police Department, who passed it on to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Copies have also gone to Assassination Records Review Board, the federal panel created to oversee the identification and release of records relating to the JFK assassination.

Malcolm Wallace, convicted in a 1951 murder and suspected in others, has been linked to the 1961 death of U.S. Department of Agriculture investigator Henry Marshall. Marshall was reportedly close to connecting Lyndon Johnson to fraudulent activities involving businessman and convicted swindler Billy Sol Estes.

Estes alleged in 1984 that LBJ ordered the killings of Marshall, President Kennedy, and half a dozen others, and that Wallace carried them out. A grand jury decided that same year that Henry Marshall was murdered as a result of a conspiracy involving then-Vice President Johnson, his aide Clifton Carter, and Wallace. No charges were possible since all three men were by then deceased...

The Wallace fingerprint match by Darby has been disputed by Glen Sample, who represents California-based researchers whose investigation parallels the Texas research. While Sample says the California group still believes Wallace "was one of the shooters" of President Kennedy, they do not believe his fingerprints are those from the TSBD box.

In support of this, Sample offers fingerprint experts of his own. "Both of our experts are working police I.D. officers," he wrote on his web page. "They go to court on a regular basis, testifying as expert witnesses. They said that the print was clearly not a match. But what about the 14 points? They said that it is not uncommon to have a set of prints that have many matching points, but when they find points that do not match, these negate the matching points." Sample characterized this finding by his experts as "bad news."

Walt Brown countered by saying that Sample's experts "were local i.d. bureau guys from San Bernadino, and not in the category of either Nathan Darby or the people that it was hoped would examine the originals within the law enforcement communities charged with the proper investigation."

Darby is a Certified Latent Print Examiner with many years experience. He affirmed in a notarized affidavit that he found 14 matches between a National Archives "unknown" print, taken from what the Warren Commission designated Box A in the Texas School Book Depository, and a fingerprint card submitted "blindly" for comparison, which bore the fingerprints of Malcolm Wallace. That card was obtained from the Texas Department of Public Safety in July of 1996.

In 'Blood, Money and Power' Barr McClellan offers new insights into the dark and ruthless forces that propelled Lyndon Baines Johnson into the highest office in the land.

His arch villain is Texan attorney Edward A Clark. He controlled LBJ's financial, legal and political fortunes for three decades from offices in downtown Austin. He accuses Clark, now deceased, of being the man who personally orchestrated the assassination of JFK when Johnson faced political ruin and possible imprisonment due to past misdeeds.

For many this will appear a contentious scenario. Yet McClellan writes from a unique perspective. He was an insider. As a member of the Clark law firm, albeit from 1966 onwards, he was privy to specific conversations and shared confidences with colleagues that convinced him of Clark's principal role in the murder of Kennedy. He is to be congratulated on finally breaking the powerful attorney-client privilege that traditionally binds all lawyers in order to bring what he knows to the world.

At the very least this work opens up a wider debate on the alleged complicity of Johnson and his henchmen in the murder of JFK. Barr McClellan 's insider's voice is a valuable addition to those who earnestly seek the truth of what really happened on November 22nd, 1963.

I've also had the opportunity to read Barr McClellan's manuscript, in which he describes how he served as personal attorney to Ed Clark who served as the intermediary between Lyndon Johnson and all of his myriad political contretemps. One, of course, was JFK, and this book takes the reader through the labyrinth of Dallas and puts LBJ center-stage, and it is hard not to read the work and not shout, 'Guilty as hell!!'"

He (Wallace) had to be eliminated. After driving to see his daughter in Troup, Texas, he went by L & G's offices in Longview, Texas. There his exhaust was rigged for part of it to flow into his car.

There's an explosive new book that lays out a very detailed - and persuasive - case for the probability that the late President Lyndon Baines Johnson was responsible for the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

I say persuasive because the author, Barr McClellan, was one of LBJ's top lawyers, and he provides a lot of information hitherto unknown to the general public - much more of which he says is buried in secret documents long withheld from the American people....

McClellan and others before him have discussed the fact that LBJ faced some pretty awful prospects, including not only being dumped from the 1964 ticket but also spending a long, long time in the slammer as a result of his role in the rapidly expanding Bobby Baker case - something few have speculated about because the full facts were never revealed by the media, which didn't want to know, or report, the truth...

Bobby Kennedy, called five of Washington's top reporters into his office and told them it was now open season on Lyndon Johnson. It's OK, he told them, to go after the story they were ignoring out of deference to the administration.

And from that point on until the events in Dallas, Lyndon Baines Johnson's future looked as if it included a sudden end to his political career and a few years in the slammer. The Kennedys had their knives out and sharpened for him and were determined to draw his political blood - all of it.

In the Senate, the investigation into the Baker case was moving quickly ahead. Even the Democrats were cooperating, thanks to the Kennedys, and an awful lot of really bad stuff was being revealed - until Nov. 22, 1963.

By Nov. 23, all Democrat cooperation suddenly stopped. Lyndon would serve a term and a half in the White House instead of the slammer, the Baker investigation would peter out and Bobby Baker would serve a short sentence and go free. Dallas accomplished all of that.

Funeral arrangements for Malcolm E. Wallace, 49, of 610 Tennison Memorial Drive, a former employee of Ling-Tempco-Vought, are pending at Smith-Bates Funeral Chapel in Mount Pleasant.

Mr. Wallace died in an automobile accident near Pittsburg, Texas Thursday. He had recently returned to Dallas from Fullerton, California. He was a long time resident of Dallas and was graduated from the University of Texas at Austin, where he was president of the student body in 1947. He had served in the Marine Corps. and was a member of St. Johns Episcopal Church in Dallas. He had been with LTV more than 15 years as an administrator.

Funeral services for Malcolm E. Wallace, 49, of 610 Tennison Memorial Drive, who was killed Thursday night in a traffic accident in Pittsburg, Camp County, will be held at 2:00 p.m. Sunday in the Nevils Baptist Church in Mount Pleasant, Titus County. Burial will be in the Nevils Chapel Cemetery there.

The Texas Department of Public Safety reported that Wallace was killed about 7:35 p.m. Thursday when his car ran off the road 3.5 miles south of Pittsburg on U.S. 271.

A native of Mount Pleasant, he had lived in Dallas for 30 years. before moving to California about 10 years ago. He had recently returned to Dallas. He was formerly manager of the purchasing department of Ling-Temco-Vought, Inc.

He was graduated in 1947 from the University of Texas, where he served as president of the student body during that year. He was a member of St. John Episcopal Church and a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps.

In 1961, State Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation official Henry Marshall was investigating a broad series of fraudulent government subsidies - amounting to figures in the seven or eight digit range - allotted to Billie Sol Estes, a close personal friend of Senate Majority Leader then Vice-President Lyndon B. Johnson. Marshall had uncovered a paper trail that was leading him closer and closer to Johnson himself.

On June 3, 1961, Mac Wallace knocked Henry Marshall unconscious with a blunt object, fed the unconscious man carbon monoxide from a hose attached to Wallace's pick-up truck, then shot him five times with a bolt-action .22 caliber rifle and dumped him in a remote corner of Marshall's farm near Franklin, Texas. Justice of the Peace Lee Farmer pronounced the death a suicide and ordered Marshall buried without an autopsy - over the protests of Marshall's widow. The verdict remained unchanged until 1984, when Billie Sol Estes, under a grant of immunity, told a grand jury that Wallace had been Marshall's killer, and that the order came from Vice-President Lyndon B. Johnson through White House aide Cliff Carter. Based on Estes' testimony and supporting evidence, the grand jury changed the earlier ruling of suicide to murder. Mac Wallace could not be indicted; he died in an automobile accident in Pittsburgh, Texas, on January 7, 1971.

A Pecos doctor, John Dunn, picked up Henry Marshall's investigation. Despite filing his report on Johnson and Estes with numerous law enforcement agencies and US congressmen and senators, Dunn could not convince a single press outlet to report his findings, and no one in Washington would take any action. Out of desperation, Dunn and an associate bought their own newspaper, the Pecos Independent and Enterprise, and began running the Johnson-Estes stories on February 12, 1962. A month later, Billie Sol Estes was in jail; he would receive a light sentence with the help of Johnson's ever-helpful John Cofer. The Senate Investigations Subcommittee chaired by John McClellan conducted a brief and superficial series of hearings that swiftly exonerated Johnson of wrongdoing without any substantial investigation. Dr. John Dunn was soon disbarred from practicing medicine and charged with malpractice and claims that he had taken advantage of a patient, a young black woman, all of which Dunn vigorously denied.

Harold Eugene Orr was the president of the Superior Manufacturing Company of Amarillo, Texas when he was indicted for his role in Estes' fraudulent enterprises, and sentenced to a ten-year prison term. On February 28, 1964, just before Orr was to begin his prison term, he was found dead of carbon monoxide poisoning in his garage. It was ruled an accidental death. A few weeks later, Howard Pratt, the Chicago office manager of Commercial Solvents, a supplier of farm products for Billie Sol Estes, was also found dead in his car, a victim of carbon monoxide poisoning. This strange series of carbon monoxide deaths was discussed in an Amarillo Globe-Times article of March 26, 1964, by reporter Clyde Walters.

Coleman Wade was a building contractor out of Altus, Oklahoma, who had contracted with Billie Sol Estes for many of Estes' storage facilities. In early 1963, Wade was flying home from Pecos, Texas, in his private plane when the craft went down in the area of Kermit, Texas, its occupants instantly killed. "Government investigators swept in and instead of expeditiously cleaning up the wreckage in their routine way, kept the area roped off for days".

On June 19, 1992, US Marshall Clint Peoples told a friend of his that he had documentary evidence that Mac Wallace was one of the shooters in Dealey Plaza. On June 23rd, Peoples, a former Texas Ranger and a onetime friend of Henry Marshall, was killed in a mysterious one-car automobile accident in Texas.

On March 12, 1998, a 1951 fingerprint of Malcolm "Mac" Wallace was positively matched with a copy of a fingerprint labeled "Unknown," a fresh print lifted on November 22, 1963, from a carton by the southeast sixth floor window of the Texas School Book Depository. This carton was labeled "Box A," and also contained several fingerprints identified as those of Lee Harvey Oswald. The identification was made by A. Nathan Darby, a Certified Latent Print Examiner with several decades experience. Mr. Darby is a member of the International Association of Identifiers, and was chosen to help design the Eastman Kodak Miracode System of transmitting fingerprints between law enforcement agencies. Mr. Darby signed a sworn, notarized affidavit stating that he was able to affirm a 14-point match between the "Unknown" fingerprint and the "blind" print card submitted to him, which was the 1951 print of Mac Wallace's. US law requires a 12-point match for legal identification; Darby's match is more conclusive than the legal minimum. As cardboard does not retain fingerprints for long, it is certain that Malcolm E. Wallace left his fingerprint on "Box A" on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository early on November 22, 1963.

LBJ cronies most likely played a part in the cover-up. I hold the belief that the assassination itself and the cover-up were two different things. I also believe what the plotters were hoping to get out of the assassination did not come to fruition.

If Wallace was present on the 6th floor of the TSBD, then he was most likely recruited as part of an operating cell that needed to be managed just like all the others. He would not have been included for his ability as a hitman as at best his past exploits in that area were sloppy to say the least. I'm sure Wallace was there to tie Johnson into events if Johnson decided to turn on the plotters themselves. If Johnson was going to take the top job as a result of Kennedy's demise then I'm sure he needed to bring something to the table, even inadvertently. I do not believe Wallace fired a shot that day.

In 1998, A. Nathan Darby executed an affidavit in which he confirmed a match between a latent fingerprint found on one of the cardboard boxes that comprised the TSBD "sniper's nest" and the inked print of Malcolm Wallace. Subsequently, Darby's match has been criticized by some people who have the requisite qualifications to critique his work, and by many who don't. A few observations on the debate that has surrounded the fingerprint issue follow, based on a wading through the mire of opinions over the years (with the significant caveat that I am certainly not professionally qualified in this field!!)

1.) Darby originally identified 14 matching points between the inked and latent prints that were given to him. While there is some debate on the amount of matching points necessary to make a definitive judgement on a match (The FBI suggests 8, some other countries require as many as 16, U.S. courts normally will accept 10-12, etc.), a 14 point match, testified to in court by a Certified Latent Print Examiner with proper experience and credentials, will generally clinch a case.

2.) Subsequently, criticism of Darby's match by fingerprint experts focused on dissimilarities between the latent and inked prints. Darby addressed these points directly, noting that Wallace had sustained an injury ("a laceration" ) which, upon healing, created a non-corresponding area near the "delta" in the latent. Other criticism amounted to ignoring the pressure distortion created by hoisting heavy boxes. Little or no substantive criticism was made of Darby's matching points.

3.) Darby's match was a BLIND match. Another Texas-based fingerprint expert, E.H. Hoffmeister, when presented with the two prints that had been given to Darby, concluded that they were made by the same person. When he was told that the Kennedy assassination was involved, he backed off the identification. The experts who concluded that the match was in error all knew the consequences of a positive match. In a perfect world this would not be important. In this world, unfortunately, even forensic judgements made by experienced scientists can be colored by many factors. The only two BLIND (i.e. scientifically proper) submissions of the latent print from the book carton and the inked Wallace print resulted in a match.

4.) The prints, and Darby's analysis, were submitted to the FBI for evaluation. After 18 months had passed, the Bureau released a simple statement that the print match was in error. No analysis accompanied the statement, and no further comment has been made by the FBI on this issue. I think that this verdict, backed by nothing but the (arguably dubious) history of FBI criminal science, is essentially worthless.

5.) Following the hubbub over the print match, Darby went back to the prints and spent a great deal of time (far more time than would normally be spent in a typical investigation), and eventually arrived at a 34 point match.

6.) Criticism has been leveled because Darby used photocopies rather than originals for his print comparison. Darby's professional critics used photocopies as well, though, and the copies that they used were, in a couple of cases, inferior to the copies Darby worked with. In this case, the point is probably moot. It might be relevant if we were dealing with a very few match points, some of which were being called into question. That's not the case here.

7.) If this print match did not have the importance that it obviously does, I seriously doubt that it would be at all controversial. Darby's 55 years of experience in his field, and his sterling record in court testimony over the years would easily carry the day. 34 matching points? Barring some extraordinary revelation, I think that Walt Brown's description of this print match as "a slam dunk" is probably correct.

It has been suggested that Mac Wallace's presence on the sixth floor of the TSBD on 11/22/63 might well represent an attempt to blackmail Lyndon Johnson into silence and support. Estes claims he heard from Cliff Carter that Wallace was a shooter. These questions about the use of Wallace in the assassination can and should be discussed. In future years, I doubt that Wallace's presence that day in SOME role or other will be seriously challenged.

When a CLPE with over a half century of experience makes a blind match, confirms it in an affidavit, stakes his reputation on it, offers to testify to it in court, deals with the objections of doubters, and states that, if he had to make a dying declaration on the matter, it would be "It's him!", I tend to believe that it WAS in fact 'him."