INVESTIGATION OF THE ASSASSINATION OF
PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 1978
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
SELECT COMMITTEE ON ASSASSINATIONS,
Washington, D.C.,
The select committee met, pursuant to adjournment at 9:10 a.m., in room 345, Cannon House Office Building, Hon. Louis Stokes (chairman of the select committee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Stokes, Devine, Preyer, McKinney, Sawyer, Dodd, Ford, Fithian, and Edgar.
Staff present: G. Robert Blakey, chief counsel and staff director; Elizabeth L. Berning, chief clerk; Leodis Matthews, staff counsel; and Gary Cornwell, deputy chief counsel.
Chairman STOKES. A quorum being present, the committee will come to order.
At the outset of this morning's hearings I would like to make some brief remarks.
This morning, the Select Committee on Assassinations begins its second week of public hearings into the death of President John F. Kennedy. The evidence to be heard today will be directed toward the number, direction and timing of the shots fired at President Kennedy in Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963.
Much of the evidence heard last week by the committee tended to support the basic conclusions of the Warren Commission, which concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone assassin of the President.
The evidence to be heard today will be troubling to somepersons. I would caution against those who would too quickly draw sensational conclusions from this evidence.
Mr. Justice Holmes used to say that the first requirement of a good theory was that it fit the facts.
Since all of the evidence in the Kennedy investigation is not in, it is not yet possible to fit any theory to the facts. A final resolution of the questions that may be raised by today's evidence must, therefore, await the conclusion of our hearings and the submission of our final report in December.
Mrs. BENSON. Mr. Chairman, my name is Mildred Benson. I am from Pittsburgh.
The Kennedy assassination--
Chairman STOKES. Madam, you are disturbing a congressional hearing and that will not be tolerated.
Madam, I will have to ask you to leave the hearings.
Mrs. BENSON. These were political conspiracies. My family and I have been subjected to a savage program----
Chairman STOKES. Will the Capitol Police see that this lady is removed from the hearings?
Mrs. BENSON. John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy were killed by political conspiracy.
Chairman STOKES. The Chair recognizes Professor Blakey.
NARRATION BY G. ROBERT BLAKEY, CHIEF COUNSEL
Mr. BLAKEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Three days of testimony before the committee-- both firsthand and expert in character--have indicated that a number of crucial issues in the Kennedy assassination turn on questions relating to the shots fired by the assassin or assassins.
How many were fired?
What was the time span between them?
From which direction from which they were fired.
Put succinctly: resolving the question of the number of those who participated in the assassination itself--a lone assassin or more that one gunman, that is a conspiracy--may well hinge on the number of shots fired, the time interval between them , and the direction from which they were fired.
As we have seen, the Warren Commission was persuaded that there were at least two shots--more probably three--and they all came from the Texas School Book Depository, which was to the right rear of the Presidential limousine. The Commission found the discovery of three spent cartridge cases on the floor of the sixth story of the book depository, its most persuasive evidence on the question of the number of shots, even though the medical and ballistics evidence could account for only two shots. Based on expert FBI testimony that the minimum time required to fire the rifle ranged from 2.25 to 2.3 seconds and an analysis of the Zapruder film, it also concluded that the time from the first to the last shot most probably ranged from 7.1 to 7.9 seconds.
The best way, of course, to determine the number of shots is to listen to them--either when they occur or subsequently--on a sound recording, if one were to exist. The Warren Commission was alerted to the possibility of such a recording, one that was made by Dallas radio station KBOX and later used as part of a phonograph record produced by Colpix, Inc., "Four Days that Shocked the World," A private citizen who had bought the record informed the commission on January 8, 1964 about the program and suggested that sounds of shots could be detected in an on-the-scene account of the assassination by Dallas reporter Sam Pate.
The Commission obtained the recording from KBOX, and on June 29 Assistant Counsel Arlen Specter wrote a memo to General Counsel J. Lee Rankin in which he noted, "Several members of the staff listened to the tape and heard two noises which sound like gunshots..."
On June 30, the commission sent the tape to Dr. Lawrence Kersta of BellTelephone Laboratories, Murry Hill, N. J. Dr. Kersta's analyses of the tape, however, apparently inclusive. I say " apparently," because attempts by this committee to find reports of Dr. Kersta's work have beento date unsuccessful.
Another way to try and pin down the number, time sequence and direction of the shots is to take testimony from on-the-scene witnesses. The Warren Commission conducted--or had conducted for it--exhaustive interviews of this character.
The recollections of the witnesses, however, were far from consistent. On the number of shots, the range was two to six, although three was seemingly the consensus. The time sequence ranged from 5 to 6 seconds.
On their origin, reactions were also mixed. Many witnesses thought they came from the general direction of the book depository, but a significant number of others put the firing point at a piece of elevated landscape to the front and right of the limousine that has come to be known as the "grassy knoll."
Many witnesses frankly confessed confusion. For example, Abraham Zapruder, who stood on a concrete abutment in front of the grassy knoll and took his widely viewed movie of the assassination, said that he thought it came "from back of me,"but that there was "too much reverberation" to tell for sure.
In any event, it seems clear that any serious effort to explain or understand what happened in Dealey Plaza must take into account all of the first hand evidence on number, time and direction--even when it is apparently in conflict.
On the other hand, some of the testimony relating to the direction of the shots was based on more than are action to the bark of a rifle. Howard L. Brennan, for example, said he actually "saw a man fire one shot" from the depository. James Jarman, who was on the fifth floor of the depository, also said he heard the sound of a bolt action of a rifle and the cartridge cases dropping to the floor above him.
Nevertheless, many critics have alleged that the Commission, in the ultimate analysis, forced the evidence on the question of number and direction into a mold consistent with the discovery of the three cartridge cases on the sixth floor of the book depository.
Mark Lane, for example argues that this was how the single bullet theory came into being. In his "Rush to Judgment" Lane writes the Commission "... salvaged its basic working hypothesis (the lone assassin theory) by concluding that the bullet that struck Governor Connally first struck the President."
Josiah Thompson, in his "Six Seconds in Dallas" did a statistical analysis of the statements of the witnesses to the shots. His findings support the commission on the number of shots but disputeit on the direction from which they came: 84.4 percent of them heard three shots, Thompson found, but of those who had an opinion as to direction, 52 percent thought they came from the grassy knoll, 39 percent from the direction of the depository.
Inevitably, of course, the select committee has had to attempt to unravel these conflicting views. Fortunately, it has had the aid of modern technology. New scientific methods have been applied to old evidence in some cases; in other cases, it has analyzed important pieces of new evidence that had previously been over looked. For one example, the committee devised new tests for the Zapruder film, an original piece of evidence. For another, the committee asked a consultant to perform advanced computer studies with new evidence, a sound recording of the assassination itself that has been only recently turned up.
The photographic experiments were conducted by the committee's photographic panel of experts. They involved attempts to analyze camera "jiggle" in an effort to record what may well have been the startled reactions to gunshot.
The thought was that Zapruder may have reflexively moved his camera when he heard each shot. By measuring the intensities of blurs on a given frame, it was hoped that the timing of the shots could be indirectly pinpointed.
Dr. William Hartmann was in charge of what has come to be known on the staff as the jiggle analysis. Dr. Hartmann received a
Ph.D. degree in astronomy from the University of Arizona in 1966. He has been assistant professor at the University Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, associate and senior scientist at the IIT Research Institute and currently is the senior scientist at the Planety and is the co-winner of the 1965-66 Ninniger Meterorite Award. He has written numerous professional articles and has served as an associate editor of the Journal of Geophysical Research. He has authored a planetary text book and coauthored a book on the planet Mars. Dr. Hartmann served as photo analyst for the U.. Air Force/University of Colorado study of UFO,s and served as photo analyst and coninvestigator on Mariner 9 mission to photograph Mars.
It would be appropriate at this time to, Mr. Chairman to call Dr, Hartmann.
Chairman STOKES. The committee calls Dr. Hartmann. Sir, will you raise your right hand to be sworn? Do you solemnly swear that the testimony you will give before this committee is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?
Dr. HARTMANN. I do.
Chairman STOKES. Thank you.
Dr. Hartmann, as a member of the photopanel, did you conduct photographic analysis in order to determine if there was any measurable reaction on the part of photographers who were taking pictures in Dealey Plaza at the of the assassination which might be associated with the sound of gunfire?
STATEMENT OF G. ROBERT BLAKEY, CHIEF COUNSEL
Mr. BLAKEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
In September 1977 the committee learned of the existence of a Dallas police tape, one that had recorded the sounds of the assassination from the transmitter of a motorcycle policeman who had accidentally left his microphone switch in the on position.
There was immediate hope that by scientifically enhancing the tape, the sound of the shots could be made audible.
The committee was told by the Dallas Police Department that it thought that all of its assassination evidence had been turned over to the FBI. It did not therefore have a copy of the tape. One was obtained, nevertheless, from Mary Ferrell, a critic who lived in the city of Dallas.
The committee then set out to find an acoustical consultant to analyze the tape. After consideration of five possible candidates, the committee picked the firm of Bolt, Beranek & Newman of Cambridge, Mass.
Bolt, Beranek & Newman can count among its many important forensic accomplishments an analysis of the tape-recorded sounds of the Kent State shooting incident in 1970 and the discovery and analysis of the 18-minute gap in the Watergate Tapes.
B. B. & N. first analyzed the segment of the radio program, "Four days that Shocked the World," that had been believed to have covered the assassination. As it turned out, it was not contemporaneous with the actual shooting of the President.
The committee then forwarded the tape it had obtained from Mary Ferrell to B. B. & N., but no audible sounds could be discerned in the analysis.
Meanwhile, committee investigators working on the case in Dallas were in contact with Paul McCaghren, a retired assistant police chief who had been assigned to a special Dallas police assassination investigating squad.
McCaghren was one of several Dallas police veterans who donated their firsthand knowledge of the city to the committee. They "read us in to their backyard," so to speak, as one of our investigators so aptly put it. Their help has been invaluable.
Among the original documents and tapes that McCaghren supplied the committee was a crucial November 22, 1963 dispatch tape along with the dictabelts that recorded the transmission from the motorcycle with the open mike. These materials were promptly sent to Bolt, Beranek & Newman.
To supplement the analysis of the tape, B. B. & N. experts also went to Dallas last month to conduct an acoustical reenactment based on the live firing of a rifle in Dealey Plaza.
In these tests, the Dallas Police Department was exceptionally cooperative. It obtained weapons, constructed the bullet 'traps' and rerouted traffic during the 5 hours of testing, Police marksmen fired rounds from the Book Depository, as well as from the "grassy knoll."
The final results of this work have only recently been received by the committee. Nevertheless, they have been thoroughly analyzed.
The man in charge of the Bolt, Beranek & Newman acoustical analysis is Dr. James E. Barger the firm's chief scientist.
Dr. Barger received a B.S. in mechanical engineering from the University of Michigan in 1957, an M.S. in mechanical engineering from the University of Connecticut in 1960, and an M.A. in applied physics from Harvard University in 1962.
In 1964 he received a Ph.D. in applied physics from Harvard University. He has been a sonar project officer in the U.S. Navy Underwater Sound Laboratory, are search assistant at the Harvard University's Acoustics Research Laboratory, a senior scientist and director of the Physical Science Division with Bolt, Beranek & Newman, Inc.
Dr. Barger is the author of numerous scientific papers. He has lectured in the field of applied acoustics in the United States and Canada and currently is a lecturer on sound scattering and reverberations with Bolt, Beranek & Newman's anti submarine warfare course.
He has been a National Science Foundation fellow and currently is a fellow of the Acoustical Society of America. He is also a member of the U.S. Naval Advisory Board for Underwater Sound Reference Services.
As chief scientist with Bolt, Beranek & Newman, Dr. Barger personally supervised the analysis of the 18-minute gap on the Nixon-Watergate tapes and the analysis, as I noted previously, of the gunfire sounds recorded during the shooting episode at Kent State University.
Mr. Chairman, it would be appropriate at this time to call Dr. Barger.
Chairman STOKES. The committee calls Dr. Barger. Doctor would you stand and be sworn? Do you solemnly swear the testimony you will give before this committee is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?
Chairman STOKES. At the request of Mr. Fithian, the committee at this time calls Mr. Paul McCaghren.
Mr. BLAKEY. Mr. Chairman, before Mr. McCaghren is interrogated by the committee, it occurred to me that it might be appropriate to clarify the record on one point.
Much of the emphasis of the committee's testimony has focused on the validity of the third shot in an effort to establish whether there were three or four shots. There is a time span between the first and second shot that I believe was identified by Dr. Barger as approximately 1.6 seconds.
The issue that I would like to bring to the committee's attention is that the existence of the expert FBI testimony indicates the minimum time in which a Mannlicher-Carcano could be operated and correctly aimed was stated twice in the Warren Commission's hearings, once by Mr. Fraser, as a minimum of 2.3 seconds. He said that was "as fast as the rifle could be operated."
Mr. Shaneyfield, at a subsequent point in the record, indicated that his study indicated that the minimum the rifle could be fired was 2.25 seconds, "for two successive well-aimed shots."
The committee staff has systematically made an effort to reexamine each of the underlying premises in the investigations that have preceded us, as that seemed to be the proper thing to do.
When the staff learned that the time differential between the first and second shot was 1.6, and thus well below what the FBI testimony had indicated was possible for one person using the rifle, it obviously raised the specter of two gummen. Consequently, preliminary tests were undertaken to evaluate the validity of that FBI conclusion. I would like to report to the committee at this time the preliminary results of those tests. I would emphasize, too, that those tests are an ongoing proposition, and the final results will be given to the committee at a later point in time.
The staff, on a preliminary basis, conducted a series of tests at the Lorton firing range under the supervision of Cecil Kirk, of the Metropolitan Police Department.
We learned that it was possible for a relatively untrained individual to operate a Mannlicher-Carcano in considerably less than the time stated by the FBI.
One test resulted in one hit out of three at 150 feet in average times of 1.65 and 1.75. That is considerably under the estimate by the FBI.
A second test performed by another individual, who informs the staff he has not used a rifle in 25 years, was able to hit three out of three in a human silhouette at 150 feet in 2.125 and 2. Again, considerably under the FBI data.
I bring that information to the attention of the committee in order that an improper inference not be drawn from that aspect of Dr. Barger's testimony that deals with the time span between the first and second shot.
As you indicated in the beginning of this hearing, all of the evidence is not yet in.
Another area where the committee will obviously have to take evidence is on the minimum time required for the operation of a Mannlicher-Carcano.
If I may summarize, it would seem that the prior assumption, the one employed by the FBI as well as the Warren Commission, of a minimum of 2.25 or 2.3 is questionable, and it will have to be reexamined by the committee before a final interpretation can be made of the time span between the first two shots.
Mr. DODD. Mr. Chairman, could I address a question to Mr. Blakey.
That test that we are performing now, is that being done with a Mannlicher-Carcano?
Mr. BLAKEY. Yes. The committee is in the unique position for a congressional committee in that it now owns two Mannlicher-Carcanos.
Mr. DODD. Of the same?
Mr. BLAKEY. Of the same kind and style employed by Lee Harvey Oswald. I might add, Congressman--and I underline again its a preliminary judgment--the sharp difference in time may well be because the FBI experts were firing the rifle using the telescopic sight.
One clear implication of the expert testimony that this committee has received from its firearm experts is that the gun can be accurately fired using the iron sights, and the tests that were performed this last weekend used the iron sights and not the telescopic sights. Consequently, we were able, with very little effort, to sharply improve on the expert performance of the FBI.
Mr. DODD. Can you tell me whether or not the FBI used the alleged Oswald rifle?
Mr. BLAKEY. The FBI did use Oswald's rifle in some of its tests.
Mr. DODD. Is there some particular reason why we cannot use the same rifle?
Mr. BLAKEY. I am told by our expert panel that there is some concern about the use of Oswald's rifle. It has been in the Archives
for a considerable period of time, and it has not been given the kind of attention that a hunter might give to his favorite weapon.
There may be some question as to whether that weapon may be dangerous to employ in simulated tests now.
Mr. SAWYER. Would the gentleman yield?
On the firing--and I didn't examine closely that Mannlicher Carcano that was here--is that scope so mounted that there is an option of using the iron sights?
Mr. BLAKEY. Yes.
Mr. SAWYER. So you can use either on it?
Mr. BLAKEY. You can use either the iron sights or the telescopic sights. The testimony, if you will recall, Congressman, of our ballistics panel, was that the choice that they would have made would have been to have used the iron sights.
What I might add is that the Dallas Police Department sharpshooters who fired the two weapons in our reconstruction in Dallas in fact used open iron sights, and they were extremely accurate at that time.
Again, Congressman, I emphasize these are preliminary tests and they will have to be perfected at a later point in time. It seemed to us, though, potentially not the best to introduce evidence and to simply allow the acoustics test to be considered without some clarification being made of that time problem between shots one and two.
Chairman STOKES. The committee calls Mr. Paul McCaghren. Sir, will you raise your right hand and be sworn. You solemnly swear the testimony you give before this committee is the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth, so help you God?
Mr. McCAGHREN. I do.
TESTIMONY OF PAUL McCAGHREN, PAUL McCAGHREN ASSOCIATES, DALLAS, TEX.
Mr. BLAKEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
As the testimony today has indicated, the committee has examined motion pictures for jiggle, and a tape for sound impulses in an effort to determine the number, time, and direction of the shots fired at President Kennedy.
The committee has also considered the testimony of witnesses to the assassination itself. Specifically, it sought to determine the extent to which ear-witness accounts as to the number and direction could be relied on.
For this purpose, the committee compiled all of the pertinent testimony taken soon after the assassination and had it subjected to psychoacoustical analysis, and all the testimony of 178 witnesses extracted from FBI reports and other Warren Commission documents stored at the National Archives were studied, and statistically charted.
In addition, the team that performed the psychoacoustical analysis went to Dallas to witness the live firing in Dealey Plaza described earlier here today.
The purpose was to listen to the shots and get an on-the-scene feeling for their possible source and their magnitude.
The chief scientist in the ear-witness project is Dr. David Green. Dr. Green is a professor of psychophysics and chairman of the Department of Psychology and Social Relations at Harvard University.
He received a B.A. degree from the University of Chicago in 1952, and from the University of Michigan he received a B.A. degree in 1954, an M.A. degree in 1955, and a Ph.D. degree in 1958.
He has been a professor of psychology at the University of California and an associate professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, and an assistant professor of psychology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Dr. Green is the author of numerous scientific publications, and he serves on the editorial boards of several scientific journals. He is a fellow of the American Psychological Association and the Acoustical Society of America.
Dr. Green is the chairman of the National Research Council Committee on Hearing, Bioacoustics and Biomechanics. He has received the Acoustial Society of America's Biennial Award and a Guggenheim fellowship. He was an overseas fellow at St. John's College in Cambridge, and in 1978 he was elected to the National Academy of Science.
At this time, Mr. Chairman, it would be--
Mr. FITHIAN. Would the gentleman suspend.
Just for clarification, Mr. Chairman, were we not going to ask any questions of Dr. Hartmann, or does that follow this?
Mr. BLAKEY. My understanding is that Dr. Hartmann will be called back to the stand at the conclusion of Dr. Green's testimony.
Mr. FITHIAN. Thank you.
Chairman STOKES. The committee calls Dr. Green. Doctor, will you raise your right hand and be sworn.
Do you solemnly swear the testimony you give before this committee is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?
Dr. GREEN. I do.
Chairman STOKES. Thank you. You may be seated.
The Chair recognizes counsel for committee, Lee Matthews.
Mr. MATTHEWS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chair now recognizes Mr. Fithian for further examination of Dr. Hartmann.
Mr. FITHIAN. Dr. Hartmann, I really don't have very many questions and I don't think it will take long.
Are the jiggle analysis techniques used by yourself and your associates for your presentation here today common interpretation techniques? In other words, what I am asking is: Have they been used to help interpret photos and films other than those from Dealey Plaza?
Dr. HARTMANN. I think the correct answer is no. In fact, I would like to emphasize that unlike much of the scientific data that you are getting such as on the acoustic work or the neutron activation analysis, this kind of technique does not have some scientific tradition of routine measurements, you do the measurements this way, this way, this way, and you get such and such an answer.
Here we were much more in a situation of making a common sense hypothesis at the beginning, meaning based on our common experience that a person is likely to react and the best information which I mentioned in my testimony indicates that people do react to that sort of thing and we tried to measure the film to see if there was a reaction, looked at each step as we went along and got the results I showed you.
Mr. FITHIAN. To the best of your knowledge did the Warren Commission employ this technique?
Dr. HARTMANN. I believe they did not. I think that the frame 210 that they identified was identified solely on criteria of some FBI agents estimating when a wound occurred and also that they constrained their shot times by this tree which grew in front of the window. They tended not to want to call for a shot when the President was behind this tree.
Mr. FITHIAN. Let's take the Zapruder film and give me the best estimate of your analysis. If any of the shots that were fired, whether they were three or four or two, if any of those shots were closer to Zapruder than the others, would you expect the blur or the jiggle or whatever the three of you were analyzing according to your own technique to be more pronounced than the more distant shots?
Dr. HARTMANN. I am not sure I can give you a firm answer on the basis of any psychological theory about how the man would have reacted except to indicate one of my own observations.
I think I was the only one in the group who stood on Zapruder's pedestal. That is not far from where the others were in the sequence of shots as was just indicated. But I stood on Zapruder's pedestal during that whole first sequence and the shots from the depository, this is my framework, I am looking out at the street. I had the sensation of a very large sound filling the street area up the street toward depository but the shots from the knoll were extremely loud in this ear and left my right ear ringing and my left ear not ringing.
So I had a very strong sensation from that shot, so I would have expected the witness to be more definite that there was something to the right if there had been a shot fired there.
Mr. FITHIAN. Assuming that the intensity of the unexpected noise has something to do with the amount of reaction of the subject, which I take it is what you just said, is there anything that we can learn, looking at your chart, as to the possibility that any of the shots came from the grassy knoll?
Dr. HARTMANN. I believe not because there are clearly reactions or jiggles. I should not even say reactions because we don't know that every jiggle is a reaction to something. Some of the jiggles may be ordinary panning areas. There are clearly jiggles of different magnitude on there. What we don't know is whether there are several kinds of stimulating jiggles.
By that I am trying to say that there is the classic involuntary startle reaction which is going to produce jiggles. There may be an emotional reaction following that caused by what the man sees through his viewfinder. There may be an emotional reaction caused by what he perceives is going on. The instant where he perceives there is actual gunfire going on here in this plaza in front of me may change his bodily reaction. I think it is very hard to say.
Mr. FITHIAN. Is that a possible explanation of the fact that clear over to the righthand corner of your own chart the disturbances are not only greater amplitude up and down, if you want to use that term, but more pronounced from there on out to the end of the chart?
Dr. HARTMANN. Yes, I think we definitely have that. I should have said that earlier this morning. From 310 onward, which as you say is the righthand corner of those last three charts, Mr. Zapruder has recognized what happened and that is based on his own testimony, as I understand it. He said that he saw the wound, he saw the President's head explode and he reacted very violently to that.
If I interpreted his testimony accurately, he began crying out shortly after that. As I reread the testimony, I could not confirm he was crying out or speaking as he ran the camera, although he says he cried out something like "They killed him" at the end of the sequence. He said he reacted very strongly. I am sure that that is what all that jiggle is at the end.
Mr. FITHIAN. So from your scientific analysis that could either have been started, that first major one could have been started by a shot closer at hand and therefore louder or by what he perceived through the lens. Is that what you are saying?
Dr. HARTMANN. It could have been. One can get even into the problem of whether there may be other gunfire stimulae buried in all that jiggle at the end. I don't think we can tell, but something clearly initiated that last sequence at 310.
Mr. FITHIAN. Just two small points: Did you view in any of the films that you viewed any motorcycles in the parade?
Dr. HARTMANN. Are you referring to the question raised during Dr. Barger's testimony whether a motorcycle might have caught up to the car?
Mr. FITHIAN. No. I was asking whether you viewed any motorcycles at all.
Dr. HARTMANN. Yes; sir, clearly at the beginning of the parade you see the motorcycles coming around the corner alongside the car and they stayed behind the car during much of the filmed sequence.
Mr. FITHIAN. During your analysis of the film did any of the motorcycles seem to be catching up or moving forward in their relative position in the parade?
Dr. HARTMANN. Not by any substantial amount, no.
Mr. FITHIAN. Mr. Chairman, I have no further questions of the witness.
Chairman STOKES. The time of the gentleman has expired. The gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. Preyer.
Mr. PREYER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I may have missed some of your testimony on the vote and I may be asking very simple questions, but from my understanding, does your jiggle analysis, when you match it with the Zapruder film, indicate a corresponding peak or reaction in your tape at the moments when President Kennedy was hit by two shots?
Dr. HARTMANN. Yes. Of course, the jiggle analysis comes only from the frames in the film. I think the conservative interpretation of that second chart from the left, which is the summary chart, is that it shows a violent set of jiggles initiated after what we know to be the fatal head shot and that we could characterize an earlier group of jiggles around frames 190 to 200. We know that the President apparently responded to this back wound about a second after that.
So I think we could infer that those two sets of jiggles are connected with the two shots that caused the wounds.
Mr. FITHIAN. If the gentleman would yield, I wonder if we might not introduce Mr. Chairman into evidence JFK exhibit 177A which I think would have applied to that last question and answer, but it has not been introduced yet today.
Chairman STOKES. Without objection it may be entered into the record at this point.
[The information follows:]
Mr. PREYER. So that that exhibit indicates clearly the head shot.
Dr. HARTMANN. Yes. May I go over and--
Mr. PREYER. Surely.
Dr. HARTMANN. If I may, to answer your question, I think I can summarize what I perceive is the situation that we have right now.
Derived from the film is the fact that the photographer jiggled his camera at these times. And if we first look at it in a very broad-brush sense, we see there is a cluster of jiggling going on here and a cluster going on here. Those jiggles are fixed compared to what is happening in the motorcade and with respect to some time scale.
Now, floating free in space, or in time, on an unknown time scale, on a time scale which we don't know how it is connected to that diagram, is this spacing of shots, which the acoustics people have come up with.
The question is how do these fit. These shots could be anywhere along here. We can slide them along. But we cannot start this far back because then we don't have any shots up here to cause that first one. So we have to start sliding forward.
Frame 310 is right in here. So we know that there was a trigger pulled at that time. We could line up No. 3 or No. 4. No. 3 has perhaps been questioned a little bit more, and there is no medical evidence that the shot that hit the head came from the knoll. So perhaps No. 4 is the better lineup.
Mr. DODD. Would the gentleman yield at that point.
Mr. PREYER. All right.
Mr. DODD. You are stating with a pretty definitive assertion there that the trigger was pulled. What you are suggesting is not in fact that a trigger was pulled, but that something caused Mr. Zapruder at that point to wiggle the camera.
Dr. HARTMANN. No, sir. I think we can say that the trigger was pulled, because we see in frame 313 the matter ejected from the head, the head explosion. And in 314 it is flying on up. So if we run it backward--314, 313, 312--the bullet is hitting the head. And then we have to allow about two frames flight time for the bullet.
On that basis I say that the trigger was pulled, a trigger was pulled at 310 plus or minus one. So I would say there must be some sound source starting at 310 plus or minus one.
Now, I would like to work it all the way back to the trigger being pulled, because presumably that is a fixed point in space, as opposed to tying it to impacts on the motorcade which is moving so that we have a firmer fix on it.
So let me say here is a time when there must have been a loud report originating from someplace. Presumably it is the depository, because that matches the acoustic evidence.
Now, the correct number of milliseconds after that, a reasonable number of milliseconds after that, based on the startle reaction, psychological experiments that I quoted from the literature earlier this morning, a reasonable number of milliseconds after that the cameraman starts jiggling. So that makes sense.
Now, the situation is does it make sense up at that end. And in the very broad-brush sense, or if we put on our rosy glasses or diffusing glasses or something, I think you could say yes, the acoustic analysis says there are events up here at this end and the jiggle analysis says there are some events up here at this end, before 200, and not at 210, for example, and not between 210 and 313, which is where the Warren Commission tended to put shots.
So in that sense we have got something new, and we have got some agreement that something is happening up at this end.
And a final sort of broad-brush statement is that I think you will be hearing tomorrow, if I understand, in the testimony sequence quite a bit of interesting evidence, photo evidence, from other members of the photo panel, that a number of very interesting things happen up in here from about 160 or even 150 to about 200--people turning, people who were running along, stopping and looking, this kind of thing, if we watch the crowd action in the background.
So in that sense we have got new results and we have got something that looks interesting and is consistent.
If you now try to get into the detailed fitting of this jiggle pattern to one of these sounds, I think it gets a little bit more difficult.
There probably are several things to be remembered about that. One is there is some uncertainty attaching to the fixing of these times, as I understand it. Maybe a couple of tenths of a second.
That is what is meant when I drew these things as kind of fuzzy bars, that they are not just precise fixed instants. So you maybe get to slide this a little bit.
Maybe I can slide this one around our 310 fiducial mark. And the more I push it, the more unhappy the acoustic people would get presumably. But I can push it a little bit in that direction, and that moves it a little bit up in front of this jiggle, and that makes sense.
The other thing that you can consider is, is it possible that either the movie camera or the tape or both are running at a slightly different time rate than what we timed them.
The camera has always traditionally been timed at 18.3 frames per second. But could that be 19 or 17, something like that?
Mr. PREYER. Could it have been running at that speed that day?
Dr. HARTMANN. We don't really know the answer to that. But that correction would have the effect not of shifting by the small
uncertainty, but by pretending this thing was drawn on rubber and allowing you to stretch it or compress it by a small amount.
We have put our heads together about this and have thought that perhaps 8 percent or something like that might not be unreasonable. And that would get you another 10 frames or something like that up at this end.
So that you could imagine possibly stretching this thing so that these things moved another 10 frames forward. If you did that, then you could start making a case that this shot initiated this jiggle cluster, perhaps even this shot initiated this jiggle here. It would be interesting to see. But we don't have any data, it is not here.
I might also just make a final comment, that all of this would make people who have looked at the previous assassination material I think be surprised, because no one has ever really considered very much the idea that there could be shots that early in the parade.
And I think the basis of that is you look at the parade and at first glance, the first 50 times you look at the Zapruder film you don't see very much happening there.
But I would ask you to listen and see what is discussed, I believe, tomorrow.
Mr. PREYER. Well, is the jiggle analysis consistent with the firing of four shots or is it inconsistent with that?
Dr. HARTMANN. I would be inclined to say that it is perhaps somewhat more consistent with the firing of three shots, without this one. It would perhaps even be more consistent with the firing of two shots, because there are two principal clusters here. I think it is rather weak evidence to answer that question right off.
Mr. PREYER. So it is more consistent with the firing of three shots.
Dr. HARTMANN. Slightly.
Mr. PREYER. But it is most consistent of all with the firing of two shots.
Dr. HARTMANN. I think it would be somewhat more consistent with the firing of two shots. I think this whole mass of material from today gains its credibility by being fitted together with everything else, rather than just being taken as evidence that proves anything on its own.
Mr. PREYER. How much of the reaction is there from Mr. Zapruder seeing President Kennedy struck and reacting, and how much is his jiggling from the sound of the bullet?
Dr. HARTMANN. I think it is impossible to say for certain because we don't know how the human body really reacts. But Mr. Zapruder said that he reacted to the sight of the impact, of the head wound, as I understand it. And that certainly is consistent with this massive shaking that goes on after that.
By psychological experiments that have been done in the past, one would expect that in the first few tenths of a second, though, there would be a startled reaction, and that is probably what we see particularly in frame 318, the very blurred frame.
Mr. PREYER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman STOKES. The time of the gentleman has expired. The gentleman from Connecticut, Mr. McKinney.
Mr. McKINNEY. No questions, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman STOKES. The gentleman from Connecticut, Mr. Dodd.
Mr. DODD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
You stated in response to Congressman Fithian's question that the Warren Commission was in error in identifying frame 210 as the frame in which the first gunshot was fired. What is your explanation for the Warren Commission's error?
Dr. HARTMANN. Well, I don't know that I said so flatly that they were in error. But I would say that that evidence does not fit very well with what we have.
And again, my understanding was that the process of logic that they used was they had some testimony that it looked like the wound occurred at about 210, when the President was behind the sign, and that is marked on this little set of keys up at the top.
And then the process of logic continued by saying "We think that--we know from the measurements that the car was behind the general body of the tree shortly before that."
And they felt that that was a less likely time for the assassin to have fired, although there is a gap that they commented on themselves in the foliage of the tree that occurs at about 186. And I think those were the two key bits of testimony.
I am not certain that that is all of the testimony. But I think that is basically why they concluded that.
And as I mentioned before, I am not aware that they did any of this kind of analysis, nor did they look very seriously, I believe, at the early frames. And in fact if you look in your Warren volumes, they start the Zapruder sequence, it was something like 177 or somewhere in the 170's. So that everything before here isn't even in the final volume that was published.
Mr. DODD. Well, based on what you have been telling us here, it would seem to indicate that we place the first shot in about eight frames, at least eight frames earlier than that, around 200, 202.
Dr. HARTMANN. I think a shot probably even before that. If I went through the little mathematical exercise of subtracting a reasonable number of frames from the reaction time, from this cluster, the answer that I got was a shot something like 179 to 195.
Mr. DODD. To your knowledge, looking from the placing the Presidential limousine and being in the Book Depository, where is that tree in that frame?
Dr. HARTMANN. You would be looking through the tree. Although as I mentioned there is a break in the foliage at 186. And I made kind of a quick comparison of some of the photographs that were in the Warren volume, and the foliage measurements were made on the basis of the tests that were conducted the next spring.
And the point has been made, and I am--the point has been made in some of the literature, and I am inclined to believe it after looking at the pictures that were taken on the 22d of November and the pictures that were taken next spring, that there was probably less foliage on the tree on November 22. So that if anything the marksman might have had a larger opening at 186.
So I am inclined not to think that that is a fatal objection to a shot having been made at this time and hitting the target.
Mr. DODD. In response to Judge Preyer's questions with regard to the number of shots, possible number of shots--and I realize that
you are not advocating that this jiggle test is necessarily the best way to corroborate that---
Dr. HARTMANN. No, I am not.
Mr. DODD. But to make the point, Dr. Barger indicated that two of the shots could have occurred within five-tenths of a second of each other. And I presume what you are telling me is that it would be impossible, based on jiggle analysis, to determine whether or not there was one or two shots within that short a frame, a time frame.
Dr. HARTMANN. I think it would be very difficult to tell. You see the kind of problem that you would get into, if we just take any of this pattern of jiggle back here toward the end of the diagram, it would be hard to pick two of those spikes out and say those are related to these two noises. So I don't know what the evidence would be.
Mr. DODD. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman STOKES. Mr. Fithian, anything further?
Mr. FITHIAN. Nothing, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman STOKES. OK. Dr. Hartmann, under the rules of our committee any witness at the conclusion of his testimony may have 5 minutes in which to expand upon his testimony before the committee in any way. I would like to extend to you 5 minutes if you so desire.
Dr. HARTMANN. Just to make the point very briefly that it has occurred to me that perhaps sometimes a scientist making the measurements of these films comes across as very coldhearted. I comment at least for myself, and I think many of us, that the horror of this thing came across many, many times in doing this. And I wish you all very much good wishes to clarify what really has happened here. Thank you.
Chairman STOKES. Thank you very much, sir.
There being nothing further, these hearings are adjourned to 9 a.m. tomorrow morning.
[Whereupon at 6:15 p.m. the hearings were adjourned to reconvene at 9 a.m., Tuesday, September 12, 1978.]
September 12, 1978
INVESTIGATION OF THE ASSASSINATION OF
PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 1978
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
SELECT COMMITTEE ON ASSASSINATIONS,
Washington, D.C.
The select committee met, pursuant to adjournment, at 9:15 a.m., in room 345, Cannon House Office Building, Hon. Louis Stokes (chairman of the select committee), presiding.
Present: Representatives Stokes, Devine, Preyer, McKinney, Sawyer, Dodd, Ford, and Fithian.
Staff present: G. Robert Blakey, chief counsel and staff director; Michael Goldsmith, senior staff counsel; and Elizabeth L. Berning, chief clerk.
Chairman STOKES. A quorum being present, the committee will come to order.
The Chair recognizes Professor Blakey.
G. Robert Blakey
NARRATION BY G. ROBERT BLAKEY, CHIEF COUNSEL
Mr. BLAKEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Bullet trajectory has become a matter of considerable debate in the Kennedy assassination, for it, too, goes, as the testimony has indicated, to the heart of the issue of whether a single bullet wounded both the President and Governor Connally. It also locates the position of the assassin or assassins whom the medical evidence indicates hit their target.
The Warren Commission reasoned that an accumulation of medical and ballistics evidence demonstrated that the shots were fired from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository. Its approach to the line of fire issue, therefore, was simply to determine that trajectory data was consistent with their ultimate conclusion.
On May 24, 1964, the FBI and Secret Service agents conducted a series of tests, reconstructing trajectories. Using the Zapruder, Nix, and Muchmore films, they were able to fix the locations of the Presidential limousine and its occupants. An FBI agent was positioned in the southeast corner window of the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository with the Mannlicher-Carcano that had been identified as having belonged to Lee Harvey Oswald.
Mounted on a tripod was a motion picture camera attached to the telescopic sight that viewed the target area precisely as the assassin would have seen it had he used the telescopic sight. The position of the limousine, as it corresponded to each frame of the Zapruder film, was recorded.
The agents observed that at frame 166 of the Zapruder film, the President passed behind the foliage of an oak tree, and but for a fraction of a second at frame 186, he did not move into an assassin's view until frame 210. This led the Commission to accept the probability that the President was not shot before frame 210. The assassin, the Commission reasoned, would have waited until after frame 210, at which point his view was again unobstructed.
At frame 210, however, Abraham Zapruder's view of the President was blocked by a highway sign, and the President did not emerge from behind the sign until frame 225, just short of a second later.
Although the Commission was unable to fix the exact time point the President was first hit, it was able to determine that it was during the period he was behind the sign. The Commission thought he showed no sign of injury before frame 210; he was obviously hit at frame 225. It should be emphasized, however, that there is no photographic evidence recording the precise instant of the first .hit to the President.
Still, the Commission proceeded to plot the trajectory of the first shot to hit the President by assuming the position of the limousine to be between frames 210 and 225. At each intervening frame, the FBI agent at the sixth floor window lined up the telescopic sight on the points of entry wounds marked on stand-ins for the President and Governor Connally seated in the limousine.
The next step was to have a surveyor place his sighting device at the precise point of entry on the President's upper back for each frame of the Zapruder film. The surveyor then measured the angle to the muzzle of the rifle in the sixth floor window of the Texas School Book Depository. The measurements were averaged, and, taking into account the downward grade of the roadway, the probable angle through the President's body was calculated at 17 degrees 43 minutes 30 seconds, assuming he was sitting in a vertical position.
The Commission then concluded that this angle was consistent with the trajectory of a bullet that would have passed through both the President's neck and struck Governor Connally in the back.
The critics have decried the Commission's trajectory for the fact that it assumes the shot came from the rear. Here are examples of their commentaries:
Mark Lane in his "Rush to Judgment": The Commission
* * * employed the unproved assertion that the bullet which struck the President came from the rear as the basic premise to prove that it "probably" hit Governor Connally as well.
Sylvia Meagher in her "Accessories After the Fact": The Commission did not give
adequate consideration to the possibility of assassins at locations other than the window or the overpass * * *. There is a considerable body of evidence suggesting that shots were fired from the grassy knoll * * *
Josiah Thompson in his "Six Seconds in Dallas" attempted a trajectory analysis and decided that there were four shots from three locations--two from the depository, one from the east side of Dealey Plaza, one from the stockade fence north on Elm Street.
It would seem that the critics have at least one point in their favor in attacking the Commission's analysis. The analysis assumes the firing position of the assassin as a known, then proceeds to compute the angle to the target. The objective was to verify that the resulting trajectory was consistent with the assumed position of the gunman.
The committee, however, has taken a different approach. It decided to take the entry wounds to the President and Governor Connally as the starting points in its calculations and work outward from there. It was hypothesized that, given a margin of error, the trajectory out from the limousine would lead to the position of the assassin.
The committee in part based its trajectory analysis on the location of the entrance and exit wounds supplied by its medical panel, and it relied on the evidence obtained from photographic and acoustical analysis. Since the trajectory study was underway well before the acoustical analysis was complete, data on the sound of shots was available only in the latter stages of the line-of-fire survey. It is likely, therefore, and it should be emphasized, that the final trajectory analysis may well be modified somewhat in order that the final results of the acoustical analysis might be incorporated.
Consequently, the testimony that you will hear today is preliminary in the sense that it has not yet incorporated the material from the acoustical analysis.
For the photographic phase of the survey, the committee called on 15-odd-man photo scientists who served either as contractors for the committee or as members of its photographic panel.
At a recent conference, they reviewed the Zapruder film from two standpoints, first: They sought to pinpoint when the President and Governor Connally first visibly reacted to being hit by shots. Second, they tried to determine whether the relative position of the two men at the moment Kennedy was probably first hit was consistent with the single bullet analysis or hypothesis.
The photo scientists who did the review represent a broad range of experience both academic and industrial. Their work for the committee has been extensive since, as the presentation on opening day indicated, the photographic issues in the Kennedy assassination are many and complex.
A member of the photographic evidence panel, Mr. Calvin McCamy, is here today to testify on part of the trajectory analysis that utilizes the Zapruder film. He will also discuss the photogrammetric technique that was used to locate precisely the position of the limousine at the time the shots that struck the President and Governor Connally were fired.
Mr. McCamy received a B.S. degree in chemical engineering and a M.S. degree in physics from the University of Minnesota. He has taught mathematics at the University of Minnesota and physics at Clemson University. He has been the Chief of Image Optics and Photography with the National Bureau of Standards. Currently, he is with the Macbeth Division of Kollmorgen Corp.
Mr. McCamy serves as chairman of the American National Standards' Working Group on Print Quality for Optical Character Recognition, chairman of the American Society of Photogrammetry
Standards Committee, and adviser to the U.S. delegation to the International Organization for Standardization Committee on Photography.
Mr. McCamy is a fellow of the Optical Society of America, the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, and the Society of Photographic Scientists and Engineers. He serves on the editorial review boards of several technical journals and he has authored numerous papers on photography, color printing and other aspects of chemistry and physics.
It would be appropriate now, Mr. Chairman, to call Mr. McCamy.
Chairman STOKES. The committee calls Mr. McCamy. Sir, will you stand, raise your right hand and be sworn.
Do you solemnly swear the testimony you will give before this committee will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?
Mr. McCAMY. I do.
Chairman STOKES. Thank you. You may be seated.
The Chair recognizes counsel for the committee, Mr. Michael Goldsmith.
Mr. GOLDSMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. McCamy, for what purposes were the photographic evidence panel and contractors asked to review the Zapruder film at its most recent conference?
Chairman STOKES. Blakey.
Mr. BLAKEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The photographic analysis was, of course, only an underlying fact from which the trajectory analysis could proceed. The trajectory analysis itself was a joint effort between the committee and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. An engineer with NASA's Space Project Division, Tom Canning, constructed the final product from information provided by the committee from its various panels.
Mr. Canning received a B.S., cum laude, in mechanical engineering and an M.S. in aeronautics from Stanford University. Since joining NASA in 1943 as an aeronautical research scientist, he has been the Branch Chief of the Hypersonic Free-Flight Branch, Group Leader of the Probes System Group of Pioneer-Venus Mission, and currently he is Staff Engineer of the Space Projects Division.
Mr. Canning received the NASA Medal for Exceptional Scientific Achievement for his work in atmosphere entry body research for Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo. During his 23 years of work with the Hypersonic Free-flight Branch he has conducted and supervised research in the flight trajectory and stability of high speed projectiles and missiles. He has published numerous papers in that field. Mr. Chairman, it would be appropriate now to call Mr. Canning.
Chairman STOKES. The committee calls Mr. Canning.
Sir, would you please stand and raise your right hand to be sworn?
Do you solemnly swear that the evidence you will give before this committee is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?
Mr. CANNING. I do, yes.
Chairman STOKES. Thank you. You may be seated. Mr. Goldsmith?
Mr. GOLDSMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. If I may have a moment.
For the record, sir, would you please state your name and occupation?
Chairman STOKES. There are no further witnesses to come before the committee today. Therefore, at this time the Chair would adjourn these hearings until 9 a.m. tomorrow morning.
[Whereupon, at 12:40 p.m., the select committee was adjourned, to reconvene at 9 a.m., Wednesday, September 13, 1978.]
September 13, 1978
INVESTIGATION OF THE ASSASSINATION OF
PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 1978
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
SELECT COMMITTEE ON ASSASSINATIONS,
Washington, D.C
The select committee met, pursuant to adjournment, at 9:15 a.m., in room 345, Cannon House Office Building, Hon. Louis Stokes (chairman of the select committee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Stokes, Devine, Preyer, Fauntroy, Thone, Sawyer, Ford, Fithian, and Edgar.
Staff present: G. Robert Blakey, chief counsel and staff director; James McDonald, staff counsel, and Elizabeth L. Berning, chief clerk.
Chairman STOKES. The quorum being present, the committee will come to order.
At the outset of today's hearing, I would like to make a couple of observations.
During the course of our hearings, on two occasions we have had individuals who have attempted to disrupt the proceedings, and on those occasions, it has been necessary for the Chair to order those persons to be removed from the room.
The Chair would like to make it clear that these are congressional hearings. First, they are to be conducted with a certain amount of dignity, and accordingly the Chair will not tolerate any disruption whatsoever of these hearings. We hope that all individuals observe the practices of the House and not cause this type of action to have to be taken during the course of these hearings.
Second, this morning's witness, at the time the witness is brought into the room, I will ask that all individuals remain seated until after the witness has been brought into the room and seated at the witness table, and then again when the witness leaves the room, we will ask that all persons remain in their seats until the witness has been escorted from the room.
Mr. Blakey.
NARRATION BY G. ROBERT BLAKEY, CHIEF COUNSEL
Mr. BLAKEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Marina Prusakova was born on July 17, 1941 in the Russian village of Molotovsk near the White Sea. She was raised, for the most part, by her grandmother.
In August 1959, Marina moved to the city of Minsk, and in March 1961, at a dance, she met a young American who called himself Alik. Six weeks later, Marina and Lee Harvey Oswald were
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married. It is fair, therefore, to presume that in the succeeding years Marina was the closest person to Lee Harvey Oswald.
The Oswalds remained in Russia until June 1962, at which time they moved to the United States. They went to Dallas, the home of Lee's mother and a brother. In the spring of 1963, they moved to New Orleans, then back to Dallas in September.
After Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested in connection with the assassination of President Kennedy and then shot to death by Jack Ruby, Mrs. Oswald testified a total of four times before the Warren Commission. All of her testimony was in closed session. In 1965, Marina Oswald married Kenneth Porter.
In October of 1977, Priscilla Johnson McMillan published her "Marina and Lee," a book in which Marina cooperated so as "to speak, through her more capable words, the things the people should know."
There will be four general areas of questioning of Mrs. Porter this morning: First, Russia; second, Dallas from June 1962 through April 1963; third, New Orleans from April 1963 to September 1963; fourth, Dallas from September 1963 to November 1963.
It would be appropriate now, Mr. Chairman, to call Mrs. Porter.
Chairman STOKES. The committee calls Mrs. Porter.
Mrs. Porter, would you please stand and raise your right hand and be sworn?
Do you solemnly swear the testimony you will give before this committee is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?
Mrs. PORTER. I do.
Chairman STOKES. Thank you. You may be seated.
The Chair recognizes counsel for the committee, Mr. James McDonald.
Mr. MCDONALD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. For the record, would you please state your full name?
TESTIMONY OF MARINA OSWALD PORTER
NARRATION BY G. ROBERT BLAKEY, CHIEF COUNSEL
Mr. BLAKEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. One of the most publicized issues to emerge in the investigation of the Kennedy assassination has to do with the authenticity of the photographs of Lee Harvey Oswald with a holstered pistol strapped to his waist, holding a rifle in one hand, and in the other copies of The Militant and The Worker, both Communist publications. These photographs collectively have come to be known as the backyard photographs.
Oswald himself, when shown the pictures at the Dallas Police Headquarters after his arrest, insisted that they were fakes, and over the years many critics have argued similarly. No doubt, the controversy was stimulated by the publication on the cover of Life in 1964 of a copy of one picture retouched to enhance the quality.
If the backyard photographs are valid, they are highly incriminatory of Oswald, and they tend strongly to corroborate the basic story told by Marina Oswald. If they are invalid, how they were produced poses far-reaching questions in the area of conspiracy for they evince a degree of technical sophistication that would almost necessarily raise the possibility that more than private parties conspired not only to kill the President, but to make Oswald a patsy.
Here, then, is a brief history of the backyard photographs.
In the early afternoon of November 23, 1963, Dallas detectives obtained a warrant to search the home of Ruth Paine in Irving, Tex., where Marina Oswald had been living. A thorough search of the premises was conducted. It concentrated primarily on a garage in which possessions of the Oswalds were stored.
Among the belongings, Detective Guy F. Rose found a brown cardboard box containing books, papers, and photographs. There were at least two prints of Oswald holding the rifle, each showing him in a slightly different pose, and there was at least one negative from which one of the prints had been made. The items were taken to the Dallas Police Headquarters.
On the evening of November 23, Captain Will Fritz first showed Oswald an enlargement of the picture later designated by the Warren Commission as CE 133-A. According to officers present, Oswald denied repeatedly that he had ever seen the photograph and claimed that someone had superimposed his head on another's body. Oswald was then shown the print later designated as CE 133-B, which he also claimed was a trick photo.
Marina Oswald was subsequently questioned by the FBI about the photos. She said that they were taken at the Oswald home on Neeley Street in Dallas, in the backyard. But Marina gave two different versions of when the pictures were taken. She first told the FBI it was in late February or early March 1963. Her testimony to the Warren Commission reflected the same recollection.
Nevertheless in an FBI interview made after her initial appearance before the Warren Commission she said that the first time she ever saw the rifle was toward the end of March. She recalled taking the photos 7 to 10 days thereafter, in late March or early April.
Other evidence available to the Warren Commission supported her later version. A rifle and a revolver were shipped to Oswald from different mail order houses on March 20. The left-wing newspapers Oswald is holding in the picture were dated March 11 and March 24, and were mailed on March 7 and March 21, respectively, both by second class mail.
According to postal authorities, both newspapers would have arrived in Dallas by March 28. In addition, Marina claimed she remembered taking the photos on a Sunday about two weeks before Oswald allegedly took a shot at General Edwin Walker on April 10. The Commission therefore concluded from all its information that the photos were probably taken on March 31, 1963.
Lyndal L. Shaneyfelt, an FBI photographic expert, analyzed the two prints, the negative, the Mannlicher-Carcano, and an Imperial Reflex camera that Marina testified she used to take the pictures.
Shaneyfelt testified as to the results of his analysis to the Warren Commission:
One, the photos were taken by the Imperial Reflex camera. Each camera has unique irregularities that are reflected on the margins of negatives made by that camera. Shaneyfelt determined that the margin irregularities of the negative of 133-A were identical to those of a negative which he made by using the same Imperial Reflex camera.
Two, the photos were not composites. Shaneyfelt said he could find no indication that they had been tampered with.
Three, the rifle in the photos was probably the Mannlicher~ Carcano found in the Book Depository. Shaneyfelt photographed the rifle, duplicating as best he could its position in the photo and the lighting, and found the configurations matched. He also found a notch in the stock of the rifle that appears, albeit faintly, on the rifle in the photos. He did say, however, that he could not find enough peculiarities to state categorically that the rifles were identical.
The backyard photo appeared on the cover of the February 21, 1964 edition of Life, which had purchased the rights to publish it from a man named James Martin, who was at that time Marina's
business manager. Several other copies appeared in The New York Times, Detroit Free Press, and other news publications. Shaneyfelt told the Commission that any apparent variations, particularly with respect to the configuration of the rifle, were caused by retouching, a common practice in the printing of pictures at that time in the news media.
Despite the efforts of the Warren Commission to settle questions about the two pictures, Warren Commission critics have refused to let the matter rest. They have persisted in doubting their authenticity, charging that they are, in fact, composites.
Some critics cite a horizontal line across Oswald's chin as evidence that his head was grafted onto another person's body. Others claim that Oswald's chin structure does not correspond to the shape depicted in the photographs. Critics also contend that the heads are identical in both pictures, whereas the length of the body differs. Finally, the critics have alleged that the shadows cast by the nose are inconsistent with those cast by the body.
Mark Lane for instance, indicated in his "Rush to Judgment" that "an examination of the picture * * * tends to raise doubts as to its authenticity." He also argued that the Warren Commission relied on insufficient evidence to conclude that the rifle depicted in the backyard photographs was the rifle recovered from the Book Depository.
He states:
The Commission had only one expert on the question--Shaneyfelt--and he refused to make an identification. Yet the Commission concluded that "the rifle shown in these pictures is the same rifle which was found on the sixth floor of the Depository Building on November 22, 1963.
Sylvia Meagher, in her "Accessories After the Fact," states another critic's view:
It is not possible to determine whether the photograph is genuine or forged, but I do conclude that the Commission's procedures were so loose and its judgment so oblivious in considering this matter that it would have been possible to introduce specious evidence and have it accepted as authentic.
Marina Oswald, in addition to giving two different versions of when the backyard pictures were taken, gave different versions of the number of pictures taken. At first she testified that she took one picture. She later testified that she took two pictures.
In addition, Marguerite Oswald, Oswald's mother, testified that soon after the assassination she and Marina destroyed yet another picture, in which Oswald was holding the rifle over his head with both hands. No copy of such a photograph has ever been uncovered.
In the course of the select committee's investigation, it obtained an additional photograph of Oswald holding the rifle in a pose different from Commission exhibit 133-A or 133-B. This photograph, a first generation print, was given to the committee on December 30, 1976, by Mrs. Genevese Dees of Paris, Tex. According to Mrs. Dees, this print was acquired by her former husband, Roscoe White, now deceased, in the course of his employment with the Dallas police at the time of the assassination. This recently discovered photograph has been designated 133-C.
The committee obtained another first generation print of Commission exhibit 133-A on April 1, 1977 from the widow of George
DeMohrenschildt, Jeanne. In the manuscript of DeMohrenschildt's book, which he was writing at the time of his death in 1977, he stated that he and Jeanne found the photograph in February 1967 among personal belongings they had stored in Dallas before departing for Haiti in May, 1963.
Two additional first generation prints, one of 133-A and one of 133-C, were also obtained from former Dallas Police Detective Richard S. Stovall on April 14, 1978. Stovall was among the police officers who discovered the backyard photographs during a search of the Paine premises on November 23, 1963.
The 1978 BBC television documentary entitled "The Assassination of President Kennedy * * * What Do We Know Now That We Didn't Know Then" includes an interview with British forensic photography expert, Malcolm Thomson. At the request of the British Broadcasting Corp., Mr. Thomson examined copies of two of the backyard photographs. He found that they were fakes.
With your permission, Mr. Chairman, it would be appropriate now to show the BBC interview to illustrate how concern over the photographs has drawn public attention.
Chairman STOKES. You may proceed.
Mr. BLAKEY. Could the lights be turned down please? [The documentary was shown.]
Mr. BLAKLEY. Mr. Chairman, the committee has also asked Mr. Jack D. White to appear as a witness today. Mr. White has studied the backyard photographs for over 10 years.
Mr. White received a B.A. in journalism major, history minor from the Texas Christian University in 1949. Currently, he is vice president of Witherspoon and Associates, Ft. Worth's largest advertising and public relations firm.
Mr. White has served with Witherspoon in various capacities for over 25 years. He has done extensive work in all areas of reproduction, including photographic, mechanical, printing, and the graphic arts.
Mr. White has lectured in the United States, widely on the subject of the backyard photographs.
Mr. Chairman, I would note that Mr. White's testimony today will be split into two parts: The first dealing with the photographs, and the second in relation to the rifle.
But it would be appropriate at this time, Mr. Chairman, to call Mr. White to testify on the backyard photographs.
Chairman STOKES. The committee calls Mr. White.
Sir, please stand and be sworn.
Do you solemnly swear the testimony you will give before this committee will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?
Jack D. White
Mr. BLAKEY. Mr. Chairman, I would note one thing for the record before making a comment.
Proving the universal usefulness of the eraser on a pencil and thus its applicability to, me and I suppose to committee staff as to all others, I have had drawn to my attention what I hope is a typographical error in the narration this morning.
When I was discussing the conclusions of Mr. Shaneyfelt, as to the first conclusion, I indicated that he had determined that the
margin irregularities on the negative of 133-A were identical, et cetera.
I should have--and I express my regrets to the committee and those who listened--I have said 133-B. I apologize for my error.
Mr. Chairman, if it would be appropriate on this occasion to make two additional comments: The committee sought testimony from a number of people who had special expertise in the area of photographic analysis and had taken public positions on the forged or fake character of the backyard photographs. One individual appeared on the BBC program shown this morning.
In August a representative from the committee talked with Mr. Thomson in Edinburgh, Scotland concerning his examination of the backyard photographs and the conclusions he drew as a result. He was shown various technical reports compiled by the committee's photographic evidence panel which addressed the issue of the authenticity of their backyard photos and was asked to comment, and in addition, offered an opportunity to appear before the committee and express his views.
After studying the reports, Mr. Thomson deferred to the panel's conclusions that the photographs revealed no evidence of faking, noting the thoroughness of their investigation and emphasized that the opinions he expressed earlier were based on examination of copies of photographs, not the original negatives and first generation prints as had been the case in the photographic panel analysis process.
Mr. Thomson did, however, reserve his opinion on the chin in the backyard pictures which is suspiciously different from the chin he had observed in the Dallas arrest photographs of Oswald. He also remained skeptical as to the ability of a computer to detect a photocopy composite photograph.
In addition, the CBC program of "Fifth Estate" included comments from J.M. Pickard, a photographic expert with the Department of Defense in Canada. Mr. Pickard was asked about his public opinions that the photographs were fake.
He indicated to the committee staff that he spent less than 1 hour in preparing for the public airing of his comments and he made no scientific analysis of the photographs before offering his public opinion. Mr. Pickard was not available to testify here today.
In light of the impending vote, Mr. Chairman, it might be appropriate to take a recess at this time and come back to the photographic panel this afternoon.
Mr. FITHIAN. Let the Chair note that I am advised that the funding resolution has now been called up on the floor. For those of you who plan to join the hearings later this afternoon, it is my judgment, though I could be wrong, that it will not be a long debate, although I suspect from the vantage point of the committee a serious one.
If you are watching clocks or bells in the building or even in this room, in all probability the first two bells or two light signals will be the vote on the final passage of the funding resolution. We do not anticipate any amendments to the resolution.
Therefore, if you want to gear or time your own activity, I would guess you can probably tell when the next two lights go on that that will be a vote. There will be a 15 minute voting period following
that and the committee should be then back in session within 15 minutes of the next two bells. If you want to be very scientific about it, dial 57400 and find out whether or not that is the final passage vote.
The committee stands adjourned subject to the call of the Chair.
I am told that we might be done by 2:30 p.m.
[A brief recess was taken.]
Chairman STOKES. The committee will come to order. The Chair recognizes Professor Blakey.
Mr. BLAKEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Early in 1978 the committee convened a panel of experts with varied backgrounds in the photographic sciences to study all photographic evidence related to the assassination. The panel's expertise included: Analog photographic enhancement, digital image processing, photogrammetry, photo interpretation and forensic photography. Resolving the controversy of the backyard photographs was a prime objective.
Because the quantity of material to be examined was large, the technical projects were contracted to several laboratories. The photo-optical, analog enhancement work was done by a team of professors at the Rochester Institute of Technology. The image processing work was done by the University of Southern California Image Processing Institute, the University of California Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, and the Aerospace Corporation.
The photographic panel met with representatives of the laboratories in February 1978. The analytical work began in March and proceeded, subject to the panel's review, until mid-July.
The most advanced technology available to the committee was applied to the photographic evidence. In addition to the original negative and first generation prints of exhibits 133-A and B examined by the Warren Commission, the panel examined the first generation prints obtained from Dees, De Mohrenschildt and Stovall. The additional prints allowed a more comprehensive investigation than that of the Warren Commission.
Two representatives of the photographic panel are here today to present the panel's findings: Mr. Calvin S. McCamy whom the committee has heard from previously and Sergeant Cecil W. Kirk.
Sergeant Kirk has served 17 years with the Identification Branch of the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department. He supervises the branch's mobile crime laboratory and the Photographic Services Unit, which produces about 30,000 forensic photographs per month, and which, I should note, Mr. Chairman, has been extremely helpful to this committee in producing photographs in connection with our hearings.
Sergeant Kirk has studied forensic photography at the University of Louisville Southern Police Institute, the FBI Academy, and the University of Maryland. He has received the Photographic Craftsman Degree from the Professional Photographers of America.
Sergeant Kirk is an instructor of forensic photography at the University of Maryland and the Virginia Academy of Forensic Sciences. He is a guest lecturer at Central Missouri State University and the FBI Academy. He is the author of numerous professional articles in the field of photography and is the vice president of
the Evidence Photographers International Council and who I should note, Mr. Chairman, has been extremely helpful to this committee in producing photographs in connection with these hearings .....
Mr. McCamy received his B.S. degree m chemical engineering and an M.S. degree in physics from the University of Minnesota. He has taught mathematics at the University of Minnesota and physics at Clemson University. For 18 years he was with the National Bureau of Standards where he was chief of the image optics and photography section. He is the author of the National Bureau of Standards handbook on the examination of microfilm. Currently he is vice president for service and technology of the Macbeth division of Kollmorgen Corp.
Mr. McCamy is chairman of the photographic standards management board of the American National Standards Institute. That board is responsible for all photographic standardization activity in the United States, including such matters as ASA film speeds. He is also chairman of the standards committee of the American Society of Photogrammetry.
Mr. McCamy is a fellow of the Optical Society of America, the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, and the Society of Photographic Scientists and Engineers. He has served on the editorial review boards of several technical journals and has authored numerous professional papers. He has, of course, already testified before the committee.
Mr. Chairman, it would be appropriate at this time to call Mr. McCamy and Sergeant Kirk.
Chairman STOKES. The committee calls both of these gentlemen at this time. I am going to ask you to raise your right hand and be sworn.
Do you solemnly swear the testimony you will give before this committee is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?
TESTIMONY OF CALVIN S. McCAMY AND SGT. CECIL W. KIRK
Mr. BLAKEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In the case of the photograph turned over to the committee, the backyard photograph by Mrs. DeMohrenschildt, exhibit 133-A, the committee decided to attempt to verify that the inscription on the back of the photographs was indeed written by Lee Harvey Oswald who had apparently signed it. To this end, 45 samples of Oswald's handwriting were selected and experts in the field of document identification were asked to examine them
Today an expert will discuss the three samples. They are a signature from Oswald's fingerprint card when he was arrested in New Orleans in August 1963; his passport application dated June 24, 1963, and a list of handwritten questions found among his possessions. ' ' A member of the committee's panel on handwriting experts is here today to discuss the findings with regard to the inscription. He is Joseph P. McNally.
Mr. McNally received his B.S. and an M.S. in police science from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, University of the City of New York. He started in the field of questioned document identification in 1942 with the New York Police Laboratory. He has been supervisor of the Document Identification Section of the Police Laboratory, training officer in the Policy Academy, commanding officer of the Police Laboratory and handwriting expert in the District Attorney's office of New York County. He retired from the Police Department with the rank of captain in 1972 and entered private practice in the field of document identification. He serves as consultant to New York's Human Resources Administration.
Mr. McNally is a fellow of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, a member of the American Society of Questioned Document Examiners, the International Association for Identification,
and the American Society for Testing and Materials. He has lectured at the University of the City University of New York, Rockland College, and the New York Police Academy.
Mr. McNally has been involved in thousands of cases where document evidence has been supremely important.
It would be appropriate at this point, Mr. Chairman, to call Mr. McNally.
Mr. FAUNTROY [presiding]. Mr. McNally, do you swear the testimony you will give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?
TESTIMONY OF JOSEPH P. McNALLY
Chairman STOKES. Thank you very much. At this time you are excused.
There being no further business to come before this committee, the Chair will adjourn this meeting.
[Whereupon, at 4:45 p.m. the committee recessed, to reconvene at 9 a.m., Friday, September 15, 1978.]
September 15, 1978
INVESTIGATION OF THE ASSASSINATION OF
PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 1978
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
SELECT COMMITTEE ON ASSASSINATIONS,
Washington, D.C
The select committee met, pursuant to adjournment, at 9:10 a.m., in room 345, Cannon House Office Building, Hon. Louis Stokes (chairman of the select committee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Stokes, Devine, Preyer, Fauntroy, Sawyer, Dodd, Fithian, and Edgar.
Staff present: G. Robert Blakey, chief counsel and staff director; Gary Cornwell, deputy chief counsel; Michael Goldsmith, staff counsel; and Elizabeth L. Berning, chief clerk.
Chairman STOKES. A quorum being present, the committee will come to order.
The Chair requests that Mr. Kirk and Mr. McCamy return to the witness table.
Gentlemen, the Chair would remind both of you that you are still under the oath administered to you yesterday.
You understand that, do you not?
TESTIMONY OF CALVIN S. McCAMY AND SGT. CECIL W. KIRK (Resumed)
Chairman STOKES. The committee will take a 5-minute recess and then we will resume with the next witnesses. Before doing so, let the record show that exhibit F-207 is hereby entered into the record at this point.
[JFK exhibit F-207 follows:]
Chairman STOKES. The Chair will take a 5-minute recess.
[Brief recess.]
Chairman STOKES. The committee will come to order. The Chair recognizes Professor Blakey.
G. Robert Blakey
NARRATION BY G. ROBERT BLAKEY, CHIEF COUNSEL
Mr. BLAKEY. Thank you.
Within hours of the arrest of Lee Harvey Oswald for the assassination of President Kennedy, officials in the United States began to speculate about the significance of Oswald's defection to the Soviet Union in 1959 and his activities in that country until returning to the United States in June 1962.
Specifically, the troubling question was asked whether Oswald had been enlisted by the Soviet secret police, the dreaded KGB.
United States-Soviet relations had been turbulent during the Kennedy Presidency. There had been major confrontations--over Berlin, where the wall had come to symbolize the barrier between the two superpowers, and over Cuba, where the emplacement of Soviet missiles had nearly triggered world war III.
A nuclear test-ban treaty in August 1963 had seemed to signal detente, but in November tension was building again, as the Communists harassed American troop movements to and from West Berlin.
Cuba, too, was as much an issue as ever. In Miami, on November 18, Kennedy vowed the United States would not countenance the establishment of another Cuba in the Western Hemisphere.
The Warren Commission considered, of course, the possibility of Soviet complicity in the assassination but concluded there was no evidence of it. In its report, the Commission noted that the same conclusion had been reached by Secretary of State Dean Rusk and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, among others.
Rusk testified before the Commission on June 10, 1964:
I have seen no evidence that would indicate to me that the Soviet Union considered that it had any interest in the removal of President Kennedy--I can't see how it could be to the interest of the Soviet Union to make any such effort.
Then, in February 1964, a Russian saying that he was a KGB agent sought asylum in the United States and he seemed to answer the question categorically by denying Oswald had been connected with the KGB.
According to Yuri Nosenko, a self-proclaimed former KGB officer, he had been assigned in 1959 and 1963 to the KGB's American tourist section. This assignment, he said, had afforded him an opportunity to review Oswald's KGB file in those years.
Nevertheless, Nosenko's assertion did not end the mystery. In fact, it only tended to complicate it because some officials of the Central Intelligence Agency doubted Nosenko was a bona fide defector. Some went so far as to suspect his defection was a KGB disinformation mission, an effort to mislead the American Government.
Beginning in April 1964 hostile interrogations of Nosenko were approved and initiated. He was cut off from the world and confined to a single room. Every movement he made was monitored.
The hostile interrogations continued for over 3 years. Eventually Nosenko was released from confinement and a senior official was
assigned to interview him anew. This time, interviews were conducted in a more friendly atmosphere.
Ultimately, the official wrote a report detailing his conclusions. At the termination of this year-long process, it was decided that Nosenko was indeed a bona fide defector. He was given a substantial sum of money and hired as a CIA consultant, a position he holds to this day.
In its investigation of the Kennedy assassination, the Warren Commission was aware of the Nosenko issue, but it was able to make little of it and opted not to refer to it in its reports.
News accounts of the Nosenko matter have not been particularly informative, owing to the limited nature of the generally classified information that they were reporting. A book by Edward J. Epstein, "Legend, the Secret World of Lee Harvey Oswald," published in early 1978, did raise some questions about Nosenko's information on Oswald, though Epstein did not have complete access to all of the FBI and CIA files on Nosenko. Apparently, he depended on secondhand accounts.
Mr. Chairman, the evidence to be received today is directed toward the public resolution of a twofold issue with regard to Nosenko.
First, are his statements about Oswald credible? If so, the issue of Soviet involvement in the assassination is of course moot. But if not, the converse does not necessarily follow.
Nosenko can be a bona fide defector and still not be a valid source of information about Lee Harvey Oswald. Deciding not to believe what Nosenko told about Oswald does not therefore necessarily lead, absent other information, to any conclusion about Nosenko's general bona fides or Soviet involvement in the assassination.
Nosenko is only one possible source of evidence on this point. If he turns out to be good, he may be decisive; if he turns out to be bad, it may simply mean that there is no good source of information on this point, available to the American Government, and nothing definite can be said about this question by the American Government.
Consequently, because the mandate of the select committee as the committee has indicated to the staff was limited to determining the facts and circumstances surrounding the President's death, no examination of the general question of the bona fides of Mr. Nosenko has been made. That question properly lies within the jurisdiction of other bodies.
Second, what was the quality of the performance of U.S. government agencies in the Nosenko affair? The agencies whose performance is at issue are the CIA, the FBI, and of course the Warren Commission itself.
Mr. Chairman, Nosenko has been given a new identity by the CIA, and the agency as well as the FBI, believes that to compromise it could put him in great personal danger. Consequently, he cannot testify before the committee in this public session, either in person, by film, or by tape recording, although each of these alternative methods was explored with him and with those in charge of his security.
He did, of course, testify in person before two closed sessions of this committee on May 19 and 20.
In addition, he was deposed and extensive files were read, both at the CIA and the FBI. Interviews and depositions of other principals were conducted by the committee or the staff.
While virtually all of the material reviewed either by the committee or the staff is classified, it is possible to tell the essential aspects of the Nosenko story without compromising the national interest.
The CIA as well as the FBI has cooperated with the committee by facilitating the declassification of the basic outlines of the story.
A staff report on the committee's investigation has been prepared by the staff. Before summarizing the staff report, which will be made public, Mr. Chairman, I would like again to emphasize that for those who follow the committee's work that the question of Nosenko's bona fides lies outside of the jurisdiction of the committee.
Its mandate is limited. It is to weigh Nosenko's credibility as it bears on the career of Lee Harvey Oswald and to evaluate the performance of Federal agencies in the matter. Other questions are for other bodies.
Finally, I note that the staff report does not contain any conclusions on either of these issues. Conclusions remain in the province of the committee to formulate and decide in December.
Mr. Chairman, I would ask at this time that the staff report on Mr. Nosenko be entered in the record as JFK exhibit No. F-425.
Chairman STOKES. Without objection, it may be entered into the record at this point.
[JFK exhibit F-425 follows:]
Mr. BLAKEY. I would like, Mr. Chairman, with your permission at this time to summarize the highlights of that report.
Chairman STOKES. Counsel may proceed.
Mr. BLAKEY. Nosenko has testified to the committee that he was born Yuri Ivanovich Nosenko in the town of Nikolayev in the Ukraine, October 30, 1927.
On leave in Moscow in 1953 he joined the MVD, later the KGB. In 1955 Nosenko was transferred to the seventh department of the second chief directorate, a department newly formed in the KGB to monitor tourists to the Soviet Union.
In July 1962 he was promoted to deputy chief of the seventh department, second chief directorate.
Nosenko first came to the attention of U.S. intelligence agencies in June 1962. He identified himself to the CIA and offered to sell information for 900 Swiss francs. He explained he needed the money to replace KGB funds he had spent on a drinking spree.
He has since said he did not really need the money but felt an offer simply to give away the information would be rejected, as it had been with similar offers by other Soviet agents.
On January 23, 1964, Nosenko was heard from again. Back in Geneva as an escort to a disarmament delegation, he informed the CIA this time he wished to defect, giving as his reason disillusionment with his government and doubt that he would be able to leave the USSR soon again. The CIA was surprised by his sudden decision to defect, but Nosenko was adamant.
On February 4 Nosenko revealed he had received a telegram ordering him to return to Moscow directly from Geneva. Nosenko later admitted, however, that the recall telegram was a fake. He had made up the story to get the CIA to agree to his defection without further delay.
By April 1964 Nosenko had been in the United States for nearly 2 months. Already top officials of the Soviet Russia and counterintelligence sections of the CIA had nagging doubts as to whether he was a bona fide defector.
Information Nosenko had given about Oswald, for one thing, aroused suspicions.
The chief of the Soviet Russia section had difficulty accepting the statements about Oswald, characterizing them as seemingly "* * * almost to have been tacked on to or have been added, as though it didn't seem to be part of the real body of the other things he had to say, many of which were true."
Statements by Nosenko at the time of his contact with the CIA in 1964 revealing he had information about Lee Harvey Oswald led to his being questioned by the FBI upon arrival in the United States.
Nosenko told the FBI about his knowledge of Oswald and the fact that the KGB had no contact with him. The conclusion of the March report by the FBI reads as follows:
On March 4, 1964, Nosenko stated that he did not want any publicity in connection with this information but stated that he would be willing to testify to this information before the Presidential commission, provided such testimony is given in secret and absolutely no publicity is given, either to his appearance before the commission or to the information itself.
The report noted that on March 6 Nosenko inquired if the information he furnished on March 4 regarding Oswald had been given to the appropriate authorities. He was advised that this had been done.
On April 4, 1964, CIA officials decided to place Nosenko in isolation and to commence hostile interrogations.
First, he was subjected to a polygraph, one designed to insure a proper atmosphere for the hostile interrogations. The CIA polygrapher was instructed to inform Nosenko that he had lied, regard less of the actual outcome of the test.
In his report, the polygrapher wrote his true conclusion, which was that Nosenko had indeed lied. The official position now stated by the CIA is that the test was invalid or inconclusive.
The conditions of Nosenko's isolation have been described by the Rockefeller Commission as 'spartan.' Both Nosenko and the CIA were asked by the committee to describe them.
Nosenko says the room to which he was confined had a "metal bed attached to the floor," and "the only furniture in the room was a single bed and a light bulb." The CIA states:
Nosenko received a regular diet of three meals a day. Periodically during this time his diet was modified to the extent that his portions of food were modest and restricted.
Nosenko states he "* * * was not given a toothbrush and toothpaste and food given to me was very poor. I did not have enough to eat, and was hungry all the time."
The CIA:
Nosenko did not have access to TV, radio or newspapers. He was provided with a limited number of books to read from April 1964 to November 1965, and from May 1967 to October 1967. His reading privileges were suspended from November 1965 to May 1967.
Nosenko: "I had no contact with anybody to talk. I could not read. I could not smoke."
The CIA states Nosenko was "under constant visual observation from April 1964 to October 1967," the end of the period of his isolation.
Nosenko:
I was watched day and night through TV camera * * * I was desperately wanting to read and once, when I was given toothpaste, I found in the toothpaste box a piece of paper with a description of the compound of this toothpaste. I was trying to read it under my blanket, but guards noticed it and again it was taken from me.
Both Nosenko and the CIA agree that conditions improved markedly beginning in the fall of 1967--the end of the period of isolation.
Nosenko was questioned about Lee Harvey Oswald on five occasions in 1964. Nosenko said as soon as President Kennedy's asssassin was identified as a man who had lived in the Soviet Union, the KGB ordered that Oswald's file be flown to Moscow and reviewed to determine whether there had been any contact between him and Soviet intelligence. Nosenko said further he was assigned to review Oswald's file.
Based on that review as well as his earlier contacts with the case, he was able to report postively that Oswald had neither been recruited nor contacted by the KGB.
At the time of his second polygraph examination in October 1966, Nosenko was again asked about Oswald. The CIA examined him. The same one who administered the first test concluded again that Nosenko was lying, although the official agency position now is that the test was: "Invalid or inconclusive because the conditions and the circumstances under which it was administered are considered to have precluded an accurate appraisal of the results."
The Soviet Russia section of the CIA wrote a 900-page report based on its interrogations of Nosenko, though it was trimmed to 447 pages by the time it was submitted in February 1968. It came to the following conclusions:
Nosenko did not serve in the naval reserve as he had claimed. He did not join the KGB at the time nor in the manner he described.
He did not serve in the American Embassy section of the KGB at the time he claimed. He was not a senior case officer or deputy chief of the seventh department, as he stated he had been.
He was neither deputy chief of the American Embassy section nor a supervisor in that section. He was not chief of the American-British Commonwealth section. He was not a deputy chief of the seventh department in 1962, as he had claimed.
High officials of the CIA, including Richard Helms, were aware of the Nosenko dilemma by the time the Soviet Russian section report had been drafted. In mid-1967, a career officer in the office of security was assigned to write a critique of the handling of Nosenko.
The security officer gradually came to the conclusion that Nosenko was supplying valid intelligence, and that he was who he claimed to be, leading to the eventual conclusion that Nosenko was bona fide.
The investigation ended in the summer of 1968. On August 8, 1968, Nosenko was given a third polygraph test. Two of the questions related to information he had supplied about Oswald. This time Nosenko passed. The CIA, when asked by the committee to comment on the third polygraph, now states: "This test is considered to be a valid test."
This committee obtained an independent analysis of the three polygraph tests given Nosenko from Richard Arther, president of the Scientific Lie Detection, Inc., and a member of the American Polygraph Association. In his report, Mr. Arther expresses the judgment that the second test, the one in which the examiner determined Nosenko was lying, was the most valid and reliable of the three examinations administered to Nosenko.
As for the two questions about Oswald in the third test, Mr. Arther characterized the first as "atrocious" and the second as "very poor" for use in assessing the validity of Nosenko's responses.
In a report issued in October 1968, the security officer disputed each and every conclusion of the report of the Soviet Russian section written only 8 months earlier.
The security officer report, like the Soviet Russian section report, paid little attention to the Oswald aspect of the Nosenko case. Neither attempted to analyze the statements made about Oswald.
Out of a combined total of 730 pages of the report, only 15 deal with the alleged assassin of President Kennedy.
The security officer did reach the conclusion, however, that Nosenko was not dispatched by the Soviet Government to give false information to the U.S. officials about Oswald.
The Warren Commission received FBI and CIA reports on Nosenko and his statements about Oswald but chose in its final report not to refer to them. And while Nosenko expressed a willingness to testify before the commission, as I previously noted, he was not called as a witness.
The CIA has informed the House Select Committee of Nosenko's status subsequent to the 1968 report as follows: Following the acceptance of Nosenko's bona fides in late 1968, an arrangement was worked out whereby Nosenko was employed as an independent contractor for the CIA effective March 1, 1969. His first contract called for him to be compensated at the rate of $16,500 a year. As of 1978 he is receiving $35,325 a year.
In addition to the record yearly compensation in 1972, Nosenko was paid for the years 1964 through 1969 in the amount of $25,000 a year less income tax. The total amount paid was $87,052. He also received in varying increments from March 1964 through July 1973 amounts totaling $50,000 to aid in his resettlement in the private economy.
To this day, Nosenko is a consultant to the CIA and the FBI on Soviet intelligence, and he lectures regularly on counterintelligence.
In 1978, the select committee began its investigation of the Nosenko. It was granted permission by the FBI and the CIA to read all documents, to interview principals in the case, and to question Nosenko himself about his knowledge of Oswald.
Nosenko spoke to the House committee on five occasions. During two of these sessions, staff members took notes. In the third, Nosenko gave a sworn deposition, and on July 19 and 20, 1978, Nosenko testified before the committee in executive session. There was no substantive variation in Nosenko's recounting of the facts. There have been, however, significant inconsistencies over the years in Nosenko's story.
Let me here note one, although others appear in the full summary. Nosenko has always insisted that the KGB never had any contact with Oswald. He stated in both 1964 and 1968 that the KGB determined that Oswald was of no interest to them and did not even bother to interview him.
Question: And exactly why did no KGB officer ever speak to Oswald before they made the decision about whether to let him defect?
Answer: We didn't consider him an interesting target.
When asked if he knew of any other defector who was turned away because he was uninteresting, Nosenko answered, no. Nosenko said the KGB not only did not question Oswald when he asked to defect, it also did not interview him later when it was decided he would be permitted to remain in Russia. At no time, Nosenko told the committee, did the KGB talk to Oswald.
Question: Now when it was determined that Oswald was going to be allowed to stay in the Soviet Union and live in Minsk, did any KGB officer speak to him at that time?
Answer: No. As far as my knowledge, nobody was speaking with him.
Question: Why didn't the KGB speak to him then?
Answer: KGB once said we don't have entrance. The same was reported to the Government. Must be by the chairman that the KGB doesn't have interest. The KGB didn't want to be involved.
According to Nosenko, the KGB would have been very interested in the fact that Oswald worked at the air base in Japan from which the super secret U-2 spy planes took off and landed.
Question: And in 1959, would the Soviet Union have been interested in someone who served as the radar operator on an air base where U-2's took off and landed?
Answer: Yes, sir. It would be very interesting.
But Nosenko maintains that the KGB never spoke with Oswald, so it didn't know that he had any connection with the U-2 flights.
The head of the CIA Soviet Russia section from 1963 to 1968 was asked by the committee if he knew of comparable situations in which someone was not questioned, was just left alone, as Nosenko says Oswald was. He replied that he did not know of any former Soviet intelligence officer or other knowledgeable source to whom they had spoken who felt that this would have been possible. "If someone did" he said "I never heard of it."
In short, Nosenko's Oswald's story is as follows: The KGB, although very interested in the U-2, never learned anything about it from Oswald because it didn't know he had any knowledge of the aircraft. Why? Because Oswald was never questioned by the KGB because the decision was made that Oswald was of no interest to Soviet intelligence.
After questioning Nosenko on a number of other statements and their possible contradictions with prior statements which he made to the FBI and the CIA in 1964 and receiving similar response to the one I have just outlined, the committee in its May hearing returned to earlier topics. Nosenko on numerous occasions had complained that the transcripts he was being shown were inaccurate, that he had been drugged by the CIA during interrogation, and that he was not fairly questioned, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Therefore the committee decided to play for Mr. Nosenko the actual tapes of the interrogation in which Nosenko made these statements and to allow him to comment on them.
At the time a tape recorder was brought out and the following was stated by the questioner: I would like to ask that this tape, which is marked "3 July 1964, Reel No. 66", be deemed marked for identification.
A recess was requested to put the tape in the machine. At the conclusion of the recess, Nosenko returned to the room and then refused to answer any questions dealing with interviews done by the CIA prior to 1967. He stated that all statements prior to that time by the CIA were the result of hostile interrogations, and that he was questioned illegally in violation of his constitutional rights.
The committee considered how to respond to Mr. Nosenko's objection, and after deliberation, it decided that all questions dealing
with prior statements to the FBI and the CIA would be suspended by the committee.
Mr. Chairman, that concludes my summary of the report. It is appropriate to note that a draft of the staff report, a summary of which was just read, was submitted to the CIA for declassification. Within 2 days, the CIA declassified the entire draft, requiring that only a few minor changes and the deletion of the names of agency personnel and sources.
The committee provided both the FBI and the CIA with copies of the report and asked the agencies if they wished to respond to the report at the public hearing to be held today.
The FBI informed the committee that no response would be submitted. The CIA has made available to the committee John Clement Hart as its official representative to state the agency's position on the committee's Nosenko report. Mr. Hart is a career agent with the CIA, having served approximately 24 years. He has held the position of chief of station in Korea, Thailand, Morocco, Vietnam, as well as several senior posts at CIA headquarters in Virginia.
Mr. Hart has considerable experience with Soviet intelligence and counterintelligence activities while serving in various capacities in the United States and abroad. He has written two extensive studies on Soviet defectors, one of which, dated 1976, dealt with the handling of Yuri Nosenko by the CIA.
Mr. Chairman, it would be appropriate at this time to call Mr. Hart.
Mr. PREYER. At this time, before we hear this witness, the Chair would like to take a few minutes recess until the other members have had an opportunity to return from the vote. I think it is important that they have the opportunity to hear this witness. So at this time, the Chair will take a recess not to last more than 5 minutes.
The committee stands in recess for 5 minutes.
[Recess.]
Chairman STOKES. The committee will come to order. The committee calls Mr. John Hart.
Mr. Hart, would you please stand, raise your right hand and be sworn. Do you solemnly swear the testimony you will give before this committee will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God?
Mr. HART. I do, sir.
Chairman STOKES. Thank you. You may be seated. The Chair recognizes counsel Ken Klein.
Mr. KLEIN. Mr. Chairman, at this time I believe Mr. Hart would like to make a statement to the committee.
Chairman STOKES. You are recognized, sir.
There being nothing further to come before the committee, the Chair now adjourns the meeting until 9 a.m. Monday morning.
[Whereupon, at 3:35 p.m., the select committee was adjourned, to reconvene at 9 a.m., Monday, September 18, 1978.
