Transcripts For CSPAN3 Work Of The Warren Commission Staff Part 1 20140920

Good afternoon, everybody. Listen, i am privileged to be here as a moderator, but from what these gentlemen have to say, i am going to step back. It is the easiest moderating job i have ever had because there are some fascinating stories and conversations they will have with you. One thing i did not know other than that i was a sixth grader at the time the president was killed, i did not know i did not study, at that time, about the Warren Commission, but i have come to know quite a bit of it. I actually, in a retaliation creation of a a mock trial of Lee Harvey Oswald i prosecuted mr. Oswald. Former First Assistant with the Dallas Da Office was the defense attorney. So, i got to learn a lot with the assistance of my super paralegal who is here, lisa and anderson anderson. Let me tell you about the panelists. Wow is what you are going to say when this is all over. Judge burt griffin is a graduate of Amherst College and yeah law school. Yale lawhile school school. He served as a law clerk for the District Of Columbia servant circuit. Assistant staff counsel to the Warren Commission. He served as a trial judge in cleveland for 30 years and has been a mediator and arbitrator since 2005. Justice richard moss, a grad graduate of Stanford University and Harvard Law School joined the military before joining the staff. After a clerkship on the california Supreme Court, he worked in private practice. He served for 10 years in the 80s and 90s on the Iranunited States claims tribunal, adjudicating Financial Claims made hazard result as a result of relations breaking down between the two countries in 1979. In 2001 he was appointed to the California Court of appeal. I doe sit court of appeal, not know, but apparently california has this practice, so im going to honor that. Pollak, auart graduate of Stanford University and Harvard Law School, served as law clerk to chief justice earl warren, and then in the Criminal Division of the u. S. Department of justice with time off to serve in the Warren Commission. All of these folks had to take time off to form this service for our perform this service for our country. He returned to california in private practice before serving 20 years as a trial judge in san francisco. Before his appointment to the California Court of appeal in 2002. Slawson, Harvard Law School, Princeton University could you not have done better . He left private practice to serve as office of Legal Counsel in the United States department of justice. He joined the faculty at the university of Southern California law school, retiring in 2004. He served as general counsel to the Price Commission in 1971 and 1972. Howard willens, a graduate of the university of michigan law, michigan, and yale law became afterive assistant military service in private practice. From the department of justice he became assistant counsel to the Warren Commission. He research to returned to private practice and Service Special Legal Counsel to the governor of the commonwealth of the northern mariana islands. So, if you will join me in welcoming this distinguished panel. [applause] bill, lets take our seats, and we will get started. Good afternoon. Colleagues, iy would like to say thank you to the sixth floor museum for the support of this event. We are appreciative of the opportunity to set forth our view of the Warren Commission, who they were, what we were, why we did it the way we did, what conclusions we reach, and how have those conclusions withstood the test of time. The professor mentioned the story, and it took the story out of my mouth because in fact it the influential people who shaped the nations response to this charismatic 22. T november as he reported, there was a court of inquiry that was appointed by the attorney general that was going to undertake an investigation of the assassination, and also the events involving jack ruby because with oswalds death, we were denied the attorney for trial in the traditional courts of the United States. It would have been the courts of. Exas on the basis of which the public wouldve become conformed to some extent really was, and why he did what he did. In the absence of that factfinding mechanism, president johnson was willing, initially, to let the court of inquiry in texas go forward, as well as the Dallas County investigation, as well as congressional investigations that were being promised or threatened by leaders, both in the senate and the house of representatives. So, after my boss, the head of the Criminal Division came down here to meet with Barefoot Sanders and the representatives texas Law Enforcement community, president johnson was facing the prospect of at least four simultaneously run and conflicting investigations of the facts regarding the assassination, and he changed his mind over the opposition of J Edgar Hoover at the fbi, and his most trusted advisor within the white house, and shaped the president s commission on the assassination. You probably have heard the story of chief Justice Warren not wanting to serve on the commission. He turned down the offer when approached by the den Deputy Attorney general and the solicitor general. He turned it down because he felt the past history of the Supreme Court showed that using justices on nonjudicial assignments was a divisive and andoductive use of the time adverse to the interests of the court. However, president johnson, using his legendary forces of persuasion, called the chief justice into his office, made reference to the chief justices service in world war i and said what you did then is only a precursor of what you could do now in the service of your country, and the chief justice, being that, sort of, archaic figure in american history, said yes, mr. President , i will do my best. You may not know, also, there was also another resistant person to join the commission, and that was senator Richard Russell of georgia. It was very important to president johnson to have representation from congress, not because they were going to attend all of the hearings and have an attendance record of credit, but because they would bring to the task the judgment, experience, and political wisdom that would help produce a report that would be accepted by the american people, and, indeed, the world. Senator russell, however, was adamant, he did not like chief Justice Warren, he did not like the liberal rulings of the Supreme Court. About not like anything this commission and he sat there explaining to some length to the president why he could not serve on this commission. President johnson reasoned to him, appealed to their long relationship, to his sense of loyalty to the presidency, and got absolutely nowhere. Thise president closed conversation, he told senator russell, i am sorry, senator, i already announced to the press that you are a member. [laughter] that point, the senator had no choice i did work with chief Justice Warren, but lets put it this way, as infrequently as possible. So, when the commission was Deputy Attorney general volunteered me to do this job, and for those of you in the military service, as i knows whatew years, one does when the Master Sergeant volunteers you to do an assignment. Yes, sir, and so i did, and i worked nonstop on the commissions work from then until the submission of the report until september of 1964. The commission decided early on they would conduct their own investigation. They receive summary reports from the fbi, both on the oswald aspect of the matter and the ruby aspect of the matter, and supplemental reports in january the964, but after reading summary reports, the members of the Commission Nine of great credentials and men of great credentials and experience decided they cannot rely on the summary report. They took two steps. First, they asked that every agency submitting a report provided the underlining investigative reports. After reading the reports, they decided their were so many unanswered questions, that they really had to set about conducting their own independent investigation of the facts relating to the investigation assassination and oswalds murder by ruby. As a result, we presided over the most extensive criminal investigation ever conducted in the United States. The commission heard the sworn testimony of 94 witnesses. Lawyers from the staff of the commission conducted 395 depositions, many of them taking place here in dallas. There were 61 affidavit and to written statements, a total of 500 witnesses providing testimony on the basis of which the staff would have read the report. Thechief justice took intensely personal view of this role in the matter. If there was a hero to the investigation, it was chief Justice Warren. There came a time when the chief justice was worried about the progress of our report, and feared, as all members of the president ial commission fear, that the staff was getting out ahead of them. There is a great tradition of the staff thinking they are superior in the knowledge of the fact, and the members of the commission feeling that their experience and judgment outweigh the deficiency in knowing the facts. There was this tension on the president ial commission and another one that i happen to work on a year later, and the chief justice found a way to work deal with this. He scheduled a meeting with the general counsel, but he was up in new york that particular day, to the chief justice agreed to meet with me and my closest schoolue from nyu law and on behalf of my colleagues, i did not have any special title. They were free to reject what i had to say, and they did. In any event, the chief justice showed up at this meeting with burke, whome, and was a senior by at least 20 years to both of us, and would provide some senior support, and the chief justice arrived with a handwritten if the paper familiar to all lawyers a yellow pad. He listed 41 questions on which he wanted his Commission Members to address and resolve. He asked us what we thought of his approach after reading off several questions which were simply quite simple and straightforward how many shots were they, where they come from, where did they go, who helped him . We, of course, commended the chief justice for the diligent work and bring into as a mechanism for organizing his commission, which was, indeed, a useful step to take. So, we took a 41 questions, and with the help of my creative colleagues, we enlarged it to 72 questions, and the Commission Said for at least two sessions and periodically for the next few months reviewing these questions. There were some in reserve for their final meeting on september 18, 1964 someday reserved for their final meeting on september 18, 1964. It was a process that prove most useful, and i spent some time in my book explaining the process and using the notes that lee made as the commission addressed these questions and either reached the decision, decided to differ that decision, gave instructions to the staff as to how better to organize the material, and having made the decision gave the staff the opportunity to mobilize the material, bolster the arguments, ess credibility for future further review by the commission. The claims that we were dependent on federal agencies in the investigation are completely without support. This was an independent investigation that used the investigative agencies to produce useful information, but that provided a starting point for the kind of exploration and development of sworn testimony that i have referred to. I also feel that comment about all terrierair forces working on behalf of the commission to produce a preordained conclusion of no conspiracy is absolutely without support as well. Seven members of the commission were not going to endanger their decades of reputation Public Service by doing anything less than conducting the fullest investigation they could outline, manage, and respond to. So as so far as the staff was concerned, i think one has to remember that virtually all members of the staff, and indeed all of the assistant counsel except for myself, came from outside of the government. The chief justice wanted people from the private sector that would come to this investigation without any loyalty to the state of texas, the city of dallas, or loyalty to any federal agency. Would beed people that free to call a conspiracy a conspiracy if in fact the evidence so indicated. So, i think of the independence and integrity of the commission and the staff was there for everyone to observe, and i think that there is nothing that people have said in later years, doubtview, that casts any fair doubt on the work of the commission. Were the members and fallible . No . Where the members of the staff i think the answer is no there as well. One of the first problems, of course, was to address the situation with respect to Lee Harvey Oswald, who was, of course, the only suspect at the time, and the fbi had already provided information to the commission as to where the shots came from, how many bullets were had seenat witnesses a rifle protruding from the window on the sixth floor so, addressing the ability of Lee Harvey Oswald was a major first culpability of Lee Harvey Oswald was a major first assignment and much of the first two months once the staff that organize was addressed to developing information with respect to the wounds suffered by president kennedy and governor connally, the source of the shots, medical testimony, ballistics testimony, all of which related to issues effecting the identification of the culprit. Our very first witness was his wife, Marina Oswald. The press was getting very anxious as to the work of this commission. As far as the press knew, they had done nothing. The reporters congregated outside of our office near the Supreme Court on the morning of february 3, 1964, one Marina Oswald was going to appear. When the chief justice approached the group of reporters, they were eager to ask questions, and the first question that came out of their mouth was mr. Chief justice, when will we hear about her testimony . In the chief justice said you may hear, but perhaps not in your lifetime. When he went on to explain that, he went on to say that certain materials would be withheld because of National Security interests, however the whichation that he said, was hurriedly put out by the chief justice never caught up with the tagline, not in your lifetime. Indeed, three months later, in europe, where there was a most unanimous view that there had to be a conspiracy, one of the three reasons listed was chief warrens not in your lifetime comment. Have wanted to hear if you had Marina Oswald before you under such circumstances . You would want to know what she and agent, was he an agent . What did she know about his plans to kill the president . What kind of man was a . What was he what kind of man was he . What was his motive . These were the questions the commission wanted to explore with the window and they did so of the next several months and she was also disposed at one of our colleagues during that period of time. There was also debate within the staff as to whether the interrogation of Marina Oswald had been sufficiently rigorous. Everyone would conduct interrogation of this kind in a different manner, but after three separate sessions and the fourth deposition, i think the staff generally was of the view that the commission had gotten from Marina Oswald all that one could get, and that, basically, she had no knowledge of her husbands intentions, and she had considerable difficulties herself in figuring out her husband. At one point she was asked was he a good husband or a bad husband, and she responded he is a good husband when he helps with the children and the dishes, and bad when he beats me. That has a certain plausibility. She was asked what would make him happy, where would he be satisfied . She said he was not happy in the United States so he went to russia, was not happy there, so he came back, and probably would not be happened if he had gone to cuba. He might only be happy on the moon. I think the commission learned, and this evidence about his character was explored at more length later in our work when we convened a set of three qualified psychiatrist to work look at our basic material on this young man, his life, his troubled youth, is very unproductive, erratic relationship with his domineering mother, his incapacity to relate to women in particular, and to help guide us as to whether we could reach any judgment about his motive. We could not. Could not do that. We listed in the report many factors that might have influenced his action, but we could not settle, and nobody really try to settle on exactly which of the six or seven factors mightve have been the predominant one that caused him to cross this step and she to president. We did learn from Marina Oswald and from the evidence that had been accumulated before the commission started operating that she had previously lied to the investigative agencies about two things. First, she denied knowing anything about his trip to mexico, where he was looking for a visa to go to cuba, perhaps on his way to the soviet union, and she had lied about his attempt to assassinate general Edward Walker in dallas, but lee oswald had left a note for her about his intention to shoot general walker in april. , andd a picture of himself what became clear as we continue this investigation is that oswald, by himself, had planned to go out and assassinate general walker. He had researched the bus routes to find out how he would get to home. Om general walkers he found places along the railroad where he could dare he a rifle very the rifle before and after the attempt. Yet no escape plan whatsoever. He had no escape plan whatsoever. He expected to be killed or apprehended, and he left a note ,bout what bills have been paid instructed her to go to the soviet union, and she can get relief from the red cross, and that if he was apprehended, he identified the location of the jail in which he would be held, escape ando plan for he wanted her to maintain the records of his pictures and his property because he felt that this was an historic event and he wanted to be remembered for it. There was no evidence at all, at any step along the way, that oswald was aided by any person in his attempt on general walker. Now, that does not prove that he did act alone with respect to president kennedy, but it does a character and a mode of operation, and an emotional capacity to kill another human being, which was validated cruelly when he shot a patrolman with four shots into the chest this capacity to kill another person was there, and obviously was proven with the assassination of president kennedy. The medical testimony was extremely important because there was one whole bullet and two fragments of a bullet that were subject to identification in the president ial limousine. All of those bullets and fragments were proven to have come from the rifle on the sixth floor that was owned by Lee Harvey Oswald, but there was some confusion because of the initial report in the fbi report that one bullet had hit the president in the back, and exited his back. A second bullet hit connally, was the fatalllet bullet that hit the president and the head. Although those were corrected with medical testimony, within 24 hours, the fbi persisted in maintaining there were three bullets of the nature that i just outlined, and the staff, with the help of secret service and fbi agents, look at the film , the famous is router film, to look exactly at one each shot occurred, and to try to provide a sequence that would be consistent with the medical testimony and the ballistics evidence, and it just did not ring true. It was in the course of one of the sessions the group examining it, including professor rat like relikelic professor concluded that it was probably the case that once we learned there was a wounded the president s throat that had been enlarged in order to enable the president to recover if that was it was and it wont, and the question is where was the bullet that exited the , and thes throat group identified develop the idea that it had to hit either the car or someone else in the car because he was on a downward trajectory and it would not escape out of the car. If there was no further damage in the car, and timely was situated in a position in the car where he would be the recipient of the bullet after his it exited the president s throat. The medical testimony and expert testimony of wounds experts from the u. S. Army to mention it at the wounds suffered by governor connally wouldve been more drastic and severe if tom in fact, it had not already transverse to the president s body. Nonetheless, governor conley insisted throughout the investigation that he was not hit by the same bullet that hit the president , as he was hit by a separate bullet. The single bullet theory has gone through the ages as a much maligned shorthand for the conclusion, which, of course, became a conclusion of fact, not theory, because after a reenactment in dallas in may of 1964, it seemed very evident that the bodies of the president and the governor were positioned in the car in such a way that the bullet, after it exited from the president , would hit connally, and cause the nature of the wound in his back, his wrist, and his thigh, where he suffered. Furthermore, what people tend to forget is that the pathologists in the commission were not the only people that reach this view. This particular conclusion was reviewed by experts in 1968, experts in 1975, experts in 1976, and again in 1978 come and out of 20 experts lets be precise 21 pathologists, experts in such matters, who examined the autopsy photographs and xrays, they all concluded on the course of the bullet. Of 21 concluded, as did the commission, that a single bullet created the back and woundone of the throat of the president and that suffered by governor connally. When asked what happened to the bullet when it exited the president s throat he said i do not know. I did not conduct the investigation. Unless one has a rational explanation that is consistent with the law of physics and the physical evidence available, i think there is not a rational discussion that can be had on the question of the single bullet conclusion. We did have the problem, as you know, of dealing with conspiracy , and the problem that you will hear about more from my colleagues, but the overwhelming problem from the outset was that it is always impossible, and lyrically analytically, to prove a negative, and here the task was to prove there was no conspiracy. The commission was aware that of all of the possible interest nationally, and internationally, who might have an interest in assassinating the president , but in order to prove a conspiracy, you have to prove there is a relationship between the alleged conspirators and people that did the deed, whether it was Lee Harvey Oswald or jack ruby. Conducted aon staff widespread investigation looking at the association of both of these individuals intensely apprehensively, and could not find any evidence that either of them had been aided in any way. Y one of the alleged suspects so, that, of course, is a conclusion that one can never be absolutely certain about, and what commission did in its findings was say we have aund no credible evidence of conspiracy. They did not say there was no conspiracy. They fully understood that with the decades to come there might be additional evidence that would persuade impartial, knowledgeable people, that there was a conspiracy. It has been 49 years, and that evidence still has not materialized, and if i had had the courage of my convictions, the book would the titled history has proven this right, rather than history will prove us right. The last question was an important one from the commission, and that is did the Intelligence Officers of the United States fail their obligation to the president by not bringing Lee Harvey Oswald forward as a possible suspect in advance of the motorcade . Suspect is probably too strong. The criteria that the secret service followed in those days was agencies were asked to inform if there were people in the neighborhood that had demonstrated some kind of animus against the president , had some capacity for violence, are located in some fortuitous location that might permit them to threaten or assault the president , and the agencies were, sort of, left to themselves as to how to comply with these fairly amorphous criteria. So, director hoover showed up to testify before the commission, and when asked specifically about what the obligations of the fbi were, he said we had no responsibility whatsoever to report oswalds name to the secret service. The members of the commission were really quite vigorous in examining the director on this point, because a lot of the information was available in earlynovember of 1963 with respect to Lee Harvey Oswald. In fact, the agent handling the matter had already interviewed Marina Oswald. He had visited the place where Marina Oswald lived and he knew where Lee Harvey Oswald worked, but he had not made any arrangements to interview oswald. So, the director said that there was nothing in the previous three interviews that justified reporting oswald to the secret service, even though, as he was well aware, oswald had gone to mexico to visit the cuban and soviet embassies, and he had written recently to the soviet embassy in washington, d. C. So, the members of the commission felt that the fbi should have done more, and, in fact, in the report, they said well, maybe the technical criteria did not apply, but the fbi really had not performed this investigation as thoroughly as we might have wished. What hoover did not tell the commission was that immediately after the assassination, he ordered that an investigation be made within the bureau to see whether in fact his agents and officials had asked any sufficiently responsible and comprehensive way with respect to Lee Harvey Oswald and his wife, and he got a recommendation in december which implemented, which was to discipline 17 officials and agents of the fbi because he concluded they had failed to pursue the oswald investigation with the thoroughness that he anticipated from his agent. Remainedmains secret for more than a decade, until 1975, when his deception to the commission was made clear. Knowthe director did not was that there was another piece of evidence that border on the question of whether or not the fbi should refer the into the secret service, and that was that in november, after the agent had interviewed Marina Oswald, his office received a envelopen unsealed addressed to the agent, and the deception is, a curious receptionist, a curious woman, not surprisingly, open the envelope, and the testimony differs as to what was in the envelope because this particular note was destroyed by the agent at the direction of the chief of the fbi office in dallas on sunday after oswald was shot by ruby. According to the receptionist, the note said something along this line this is a warning. I will burn the fbi office and Police Headquarters if you do not stop bothering my wife. It was signed Lee Harvey Oswald. The agent remember Something Like this i understand youre trying to acquire information about me. I would appreciate you contacting me directly. If you continue interviewing my wife i will report your authority to the authorities. Unsigned. One has to make a judgment as to which of these versions of the note rings more true, and the point is the note was there, it was destroyed, and when you put together all the information that the fbi had about Lee Harvey Oswald, i leave you with these two questions. Do you think the agent should have interviewed oswald before november 22, and if so, do you think the assassination of president kennedy would have been avoided . Thank you. Thank you. [applause] and as professor David Slawson makes his way, a couple of things from a modern point of view, 50 years later, working with all three of those agencies, the fbi, the secret service, and the state department, it is hard to imagine, especially after september 11, that people would not share information. Gets the agencys attention, it is common across information that might be material to another agency in its investigation, and i think things were very technical and. His is then this is my lane, and i will stay in it, and this is your lane, and you may stay in it. It is hard to imagine. It could happen, i suppose. Secondly, i do not know how many have visited the lbj library in austin, but the phone calls between senator russell and president johnson are on there, and it is just fascinating to hear how did you put it . Andpersuasive tactics, watch your ears because there is some salty language involved as well. Professor David Slawson. Thank you. [applause] ok. Angle,was the conspiracy and first, a very brief note on how i was recruited, and the man who worked with me. Howard called me up while i was working in my office as a lawyer in denver, and asked me if i wanted to join them. In theust recently read New York Times about it, and of course, i was greatly thrilled, and i said how did you find me . And he said he knew very well a good friend of mine from the harvard law review. We had worked together their. Tomcalled tom first, and just accepted a job at george ball, so he said no, and howard asked him who we would recommend, inamed two people, i and he named two people, i was one of them, and i got the job. One of the best things that ever happened to me. The other thing is my Senior Lawyer we were all junior lawyers and we had a Senior Lawyer, each one of us working with us mine was William T Coleman junior, a very prominent ander from philadelphia, bill had worked with Thurgood Marshall before brown versus board of educations decision. Southked with him in the with the naacp to try to win cases and do other things to protect blacks down there, and of course, they eventually did, working together. Thurgood marshall, of course, was the leader, to win the case United States Supreme Court. Bill was a great guy, and he still is. I live, but he is alive, and a little too old to attend here, but i want to give them credit because the great decisions we made we made together. Ok. When i came to the commission, as howard correctly said, we did not know anything about the kind of things that we were going to be doing, except that we were lawyers and we certainly were familiar with making investigations of that sort, or of some sort. The first thing the cia representative gave me the materials they had and talked to the ways the kgb, the Russian Security apparatus, would assassinate people, all that they knew at that time. To put it in a nut shell, they did it in a way, as far as the cia could determine, that would not leave a trace of their guilt , and they would do it secretly, so the you would not even know the person had so that you would not even know the person had not died of natural causes. Remember, a man was killed with a bullet, a rifle kind of mechanism in an umbrella, a rolled up umbrella, someplace in europe, with a chemical that would cause him to die with the same symptoms of a heart attack. Would hasd autopsy attracted the difference, but who would think of a good autopsy in those circumstances . There was no record of them having used some unlikely harvey oswald, which, of course, did not someone like Lee Harvey Oswald, which, of course, did not rule him out in this case, but it was in the beginning something i should understand before i went into it. Outline of my i will how he did it the outline will sound fairly orderly. It was not. All of these things came into me helterskelter, and the biggest part of my job for the first few was simply organizing all of this, and trying to see the connections between all of the information that came in, and of course, this was the days before computers, so it was all right, right, talk to the secretary, get it typed out, make a file, put it someplace, and try not to forget where it was. Did, or i did pull it all together, and bills job was, as he sought, mostly coming it, mostly saw coming in after i put it together, and only made the decisions jointly, very much so. The first thing, in a logical order was russia. Oswald had decided we found up aout i will back minute. Runr he died we started to what we call the historic diary, reportedly the diary of his adult life. It is not that long, but it is fairly detailed. Marina had never seen it. He kept his secret from everyone else in the world, as far as we know, and in it he related all of these things. , is this hisng is diary, really, or part of the whole legend they created about him . We did not know that. At least it was a starting point. Later, as we got on, we were able to authenticate virtually everything not quite everything almost everything he recorded. So, we were able to finally conclude yes, this was written and whatrvey oswald, it relates although of course it makes him sound like a big hero basically was the truth. Ok. It recorded that he had made up his mind while he was in the marine corps during the last few months that he would, when he got out, defect to russia. Them, tell them, among other things, the secrets he had learned the marine corps. Well, i was a private in the army for a couple of years, and you do not learn many secrets at that level. But, anyway among other things, it recorded that when he go into russia, rather yeah, russia, moscow, trying to seek entry on some kind of permanent basis, that he was first turned down. This was after weeks and weeks of waiting around, being examined and interviewed over and over again. Then they said no, and they not only said no, they ordered him out of the country within hours, as if to say get out of here. He then committed suicide or he tried to. Slit his wrists. He was found covered with blood, unconscious, in his bathtub, in his hotel, by the kgb agent who he thought was just an interested guy, but clearly was a kgb agent, who is in charge upause he he failed to show for interview. They took him to the hospital. They saved his life. I have forgotten the timescale exactly, but Something Like a month later, perhaps a little bit less, he finally was allowed in. Why thedo not know russians change their mind, but the most convincing reason we heard again, you do not know was the kgb had originally decided this guy we learned a russian kgb officer himself who came over during the investigation, and allegedly defective, but the cia defected, but the cia had been evaluating him at the time we got this information, so we could not know if he was true or not. Although he was eventually evaluated as genuine, i, personally, do not know. I mean anyway, this is what he said. Waskgb decided that oswald too highly neurotic. These were the exact words that i remember highly neurotic and unstable. He would be of no use to them. They wereot mean planning an assassination, but they might have thought they couldnt use them as a spy by sending him back, could have used him as a spy by sending them back, or maybe a propaganda tool, but they did not want to use them for anything. But, some other agency of the soviet union decided to let him in. Now, why did they do that . It might have been for propaganda purposes because here was a man who so desperately wanted to come to russia that he tried to commit suicide, and when he could not do it we will let him in, treat him well, he will love russia, and he will be a great propaganda voice from that point on. That is just speculation. Once, when allen dulles, who was the c. I. A. Director, and one of our commissioners, he would occasionally come in and talk to me about his days in the cia and what he knew and remembered about russia. Nothing secret, particularly in fact, nothing secretive at all from commissioner dulles. He speculated. He said i cannot remember her name, but the highest woman and the kremlin you know, she had sympathy for cases like this. She might have said let the poor guy in. Well, anyway, he was allowed in. This is travis. We preface. We had to study everything we could about him his entry into russia, his being let out of the marine corps, where he was in the marine corps, his and in russia with marina, is coming out again, which was a difficult process. Could he bring his wife, who was a Russian National after all could he himself, who could have come out easily as far as the russians were concerned, but he tried to denounces americans the ship when he went into russia american citizenship when he went into russia. Should the state department have allowed him to do so . They made up excuses as to why he could not do it right away. So, they had to allow him back into the United States. So, anyway, we started all of this as best we could to see if there was anything sinister about it, anything that might show the imprint of russias attempt to use them in some manner and he came back to the United States, and the final decision was negative. In doing that, we used the cia and the state department to tell us as much as they could about the circumstances of russia of oswalds activities in russia. For example, he was living in minsk, which is quite a ways from moscow, and when he tried to get out, he had to go to moscow to talk to both the soviet officials and the state department officials, and he was not supposed to travel without the kgbs permission, but he did on two or three occasions. They caught him on every occasion. Well, why didnt he end up in prison or Something Like that . Both the state department and somehad information information on how these kinds of people retreated, and like all were treated, and like all legal systems, they enforced some laws were they did not enforce others. This one, all they did to these guys, not just oswald, but others that were there in circumstances similar circumstances, they would balchem out. One man had a week in jail after doing that. The decision was nothing mysterious. Oswald was paid very well more than anybody he knew for the essentially easy work that he did, but that turns out that that is also typical. The soviet government knew darn well that no one was going to be happy in russia that ever lived in United States or another country that had a decent economy with the kind of wages that workers earned their. So, he earned probably about three times as much as his colleagues or his friends would have made, but that is just the way defectors were treated. Happy. That, he was not he was not satisfied. , which gives us insight into his character at proposed not to marina, but to a woman named ella, that he met at work, and she turned him down. Then he married this is in his diary. I married marina to get even , i did not love marina, but i learned to love her. I think he was sincere, but what kind of guy marries a woman to get even with the one that turned him down . Anyway, he did. I will not go further than that because im running out of time, but the next thing i will talk about quickly is the cuban and the anticastro cubans. Us,latter were suspected by and a possible conspiracy, because they felt betrayed at and kennedy had pulled out our backing when it became apparently that the cia had botched the whole planning. The landing was a disaster. Everything was wrong, so he pulled men out, or tried to, and many were captured or killed, and anticastro cubans hated kennedy for that. So, our theory was if they could blame it on oswald, they might trigger a second invasion this time, and of course, it would work, it would succeed. All right. This is where the cia and the fbi, but especially the cia, really got into the secret stuff, and some of that a very little bit of that, is still secret today. None of this stuff i learned secretly then through spies and other things. It was contradicted to what we came up with, that they were not responsible in any way, and not that it was crucial, either, but it was simply supportive of the other evidence that we had. When bill and i went to mexico city, for example, we spent a couple of hours in one of these inms that i only read about as in our stories before that when you are down in the basement, it is all sound proof, and they turned on a radio so that if anyone has penetrated can not understand what is going on, so they have a radio going on all of the time and we are being told all of us. Points, and this has been Public Knowledge now for years and years after reading the transcript of some of the wiretaps where oswald was talking to people in the soviet embassy and that Cuban Embassy , they asked times us would you like to hear the actual wiretap so you can compare them to the transcripts you have provided . Briefly talked about it, and we said there is no sense in both of us doing that, one of us should, and the other could do the other things we wanted to do here. Bill, as an old trial lawyer he was not an old trial lawyer then, but anyway, he was a trial lawyer and he said i would read this, listen to the tapes, and you talk to the fbi. Toad things i had to talk the fbi about, suggestions about how they should carry on the investigation, which had been very good, but i thought too narrow in scope. I will not go into that. Anyway, we were offered the opportunity to hear those tapes. Those tapesnspired had disappeared, and the cia said we just destroyed them after we listened to them in their routine. He did not exist at the time of the Warren Commission. Well, they did, that is all there is to them and to it. Bill listened to it, and i was offered a chance to look at them. Ok. I have run out of my time. I will just end it with a couple of points. Information,d by even information that was given voluntarily by the cuban and the russian governments, because we were able to authenticate it, and we knew that they would know ahead of time that we could, or maybe could authenticate it, so they did not want to live, and then be caught in a lie, which really would implicate them. When the things that we did get we got oswalds medical records, or what were reportedly his records where he was treated suicide, and we found the autopsy that he had slit his wrists. We also finally got marinas testimony. She said yes, i was curious about the scar. I asked lee, but he always evaded answering the. The other thing is, with the help of jim lever, who died several years ago, he handled the investigation of oswald learned, weree concluded, i should say, he was not the kind of person, at all, that anyone who was who was plao kill the president would have used as a tool for doing it. He was simply not reliable and any kind of way. Ok. Thank you. Mr. Griffins next. One of the things i found out in ms. Os your report was wald had some powerful things to say. If we had tried oswald, they would have been extraordinarily useful. Asked, someonell asked squarely, do you believe your husband shot the president , and she took a breath and said, i do. She could haveat all ofd with respect to these things would have been dynamite. One of the things we struggled with was, as somebody said wouldr, that the trial have been in state court. At that time, there was a marital privilege. Her testimony would probably not have been allowed, even though it was such dynamite. We staff this is not my job. Interrogating her. There was some discussion of, was the chief justice too kind to her . Should he have been rougher . He was the answer was right because she grew to trust him. That is why she gave us that kind of honest, i think, sincere information that you mentioned. Thank you. Judge griffin . Thank you. [applause] this might be a seventhinning stretch. My wife would probably like to stand and go for a walk. If you think you have got to go to the bathroom, please feel free to do that. I know it is tough to sit here in chairs like this for a while. While you are standing, let me ask a couple of questions. How many of you think that Lee Harvey Oswald did not shoot president kennedy . Ok. How many of you think that jack in awas involved conspiracy to assassinate president kennedy . Maybe i should leave, then. All right. Ok. We are going to talk a little bit about those things. Say that io like to just finished reading most of Howard Willens book, which is out there. This is a terrific book and if you like detective stories, it reads like a detective story. It is the insider history of what happened and how we did our work. I just think it is superb. Will you order us a copy . I urge you at the break to take advantage of that. Now, who am i and how did i get this job . Point a that 31yearold lawyer in cleveland. I had met a guy at a Cocktail Party in cleveland. I got to know him reasonably well. Left cleveland and went to work and Robert Kennedys office. My wife and i took him off the Christmas Card list. We figured we would never hear from him again. Call fromout i got a dave in early january and he asked me if i would be for theed in working war in commission to investigate the assassination of president kennedy. I called my wife and she was ready to pack her bags and come to washingtonth. En washington. Then i got a call offering me the job and i figured i had to i was in a small law firm. Some of the partners in this law firm, i was an associate, i was going to take the job and go to washington. I remember so vividly one of them, who said to me, these government jobs are not all they are cracked up to be. He said, i was with the opa during the second world war. [inaudible] not quite agree with him on this and decided to come to washington. What was my attitude at this point . Let me tell you this. I had some political visions in , as i look, frankly back on it now, i know what my thought would have been. If i could have found there was a conspiracy, i would have been the senator from ohio and not john glenn. [laughter] make no mistake that i wanted to find a conspiracy. And, let me also say that id an assistantrs as United States attorney. I had worked with the fbi and i did not have the highest regard for the fbi. I thought the people i had worked with were pretty bureaucratic. When i began to read all of these investigatory reports that howard was sending to me, i thought, these guys have really messed up our opportunity to find a conspiracy here. Their approach in those days, and i dont know if it is the way now, if they would get an idea that somebody might be involved in something, they would go out and interview them right away. It seems to me the last thing you want to tell somebody who might be a conspirator is that, hey, you got his number. What it you do that night . The word goes out what did you do that night . The word goes out. I did not have a high regard when i came to work with the commission. When i saw what they were doing, i did not think these guys were going to help us very much in finding a conspiracy. I think the one that really convinced me of this was an interview that i read, that came heoss my desk, i dont know, was a classmate of yours and mine. Mine. Classmate from amherst. College and i knew this guy pretty well. From mansfield, ohio, and he hated he was an ardent republican. He hated president kennedy. Night or sothe after the president was assassinated, charlie was in a bar, didnt surprise me, talking to his friend here and he said Something Like, i am glad they got that son of a bitch. The fbi interviewed to guy as a possible suspect in a conspiracy investigation. I was entertained to read his interview, but it was ridiculous. I realized that we had a problem. Hubert and i decided to approach this problem was, we decided, our question, jack ruby involved with somebody else to either assassinate president kennedy, or involved in an effort, in a conspiracy, to kill lee harvey ahs walled Lee Harvey Oswald . Anybody who might have had any ,articular contact with ruby interview them, we decided we would try to get all the telephone records, any telephone that he might have had contact of hisny telephone any closer friends or Business Associates might have had. In those days, it was not quite as easy, but they also were not as comprehensive as they are now. We could not find out anything about local calls, but we could find we could get records of all the longdistance calls of jack ruby and anybody who thought he might be associated with. In those days also, ron gibson was if you lived in downtown to call, thatd was a longdistance call. We would get those records. We set out to determine where jack ruby was on every day from the date that we thought a conspiracy might have first been conceived. That was september 26, which was the day he left to go to mexico city. He was going to try to get into cuba. That idea might have experienced september. Of we were able to identify where fromruby was on every day september 26 until he shot Lee Harvey Oswald, except for five. We were able to come to the conclusion that nobody we knew he was in dallas. On the five that we could not get, we had no evidence that he was anywhere by himself. So, that was our approach to the chronology on what this guy was doing during this period. November 22, we were able to place ruby almost on a minute by minute basis, many of those times. When we couldnt, we worked on an hour byhou hour basis. We knew where he was and what he was doing. Ruby was not trying to hide. For those of you who were not alive at the time this occurred, jack ruby was 52 years old. He ran a striptease joint in dallas. He had two ran two Striptease Clubs. E knew a lot of people in town particularly if you ran a Striptease Club, you knew the Police Officers to stay in business. He knew a lot of Police Officers. He gave them free admission and stuff like that. In fact, one of the police , the Police Department did not know this, one of the Police Officers was engaged to one of rubys strippers. Yes, ruby new people. People. I said, does that make him a part of the mob . When i was in cub scouts when i was in the fourth, fifth, and sixth grades, my grandfather father was one of the best den fathers. He was a terrific guy. Did that give me mob connections . I hope you will not prosecute me. Guy, jack ruby . Members we the have juror number 10 from the ruby trial here. Do you want to stand up . Everybody well, mr. Rose, i dont know how much of what i know about jack ruby went to the ruby trial. Ruby does not testify at his trial. His defense was not guilty by reason of insanity here mr. Rose, quite understandably, the jury did not buy that defense. But, ruby did testify before the war and commission after the commission after the trial and he wanted to tell his story. He wanted to tell his story. He even asked for a polygraph test he passed the polygraph test. Incidentally, mr. Rose, the primary premeditation witness in that trial against ruby also took a polygraph test. A lot of people dont know that he did not pass the polygraph test. Reversedndition was because of certain improprieties in the testimony of that one particular witness. Ok. Testify to . Y testimony,ustices here is what he said. Sunday morning, i saw a letter for letter little caroline, 16inchmns, about a area. Someone had written a letter to caroline, the most heartbreaking letter. Alongside that letter was a small comment in the newspaper that mrs. Kennedy may have to come back for the try a lovely harvey oswald. Of lee harvey all sold. I dont know what got a hold of me. I will tell the truth word for word. I am taking a drug that i use for dieting. I think it was a stimulus to give me an emotional feeling that suddenly i felt, that was wanted to show i our love of our faith, and the jewish faith, the emotional feeling came within me that someone owed this debt to our beloved president to save her the ordeal of coming back. I dont know why that came through my mind. What i want to point out from that is that ruby said that his jewish faith was what was part of his reason for shooting Lee Harvey Oswald. Doesnt that sound like it is not so bizarre. Let me tell you why. On the morning of november 22, the day that the president was newsthe dallas morning carried a fullpage ad, critical of president kennedy. It was signed with a name which ruby identified as a jewish name. Ruby thought that nobody who was jewish could have been a part of an ad like that. Ruby expressed this feeling to moment thehat president was shot, ruby was at the Advertising Office of the Dallas Morning News and expressed criticism for publishing that fullpage advertisement. Ruby got the idea that somehow, the assassination of president kennedy was going to be part of an effort to blame the jews. It thise, if i can put way, the first private conspiracy investigator. Waset out to find out, who this guy bernard wiseeisman . He looked in the Telephone Directory and could not find his name and the directory. People know each other in the jewish community. He did not know this guy weissman. He asked a rabbi if he had ever heard of weissman. Him. Abbi had not heard of he was convinced this assassination was going to be blamed on the jews. Then he begins to really start his search. Been an experienced Striptease Club operator, he moved away to get information and make friends with people. 10 sandwiches to take to the Dallas Police station. He takes these corned beef sandwiches to the police station. By the time he got there, after dinnertime, these guys had all eaten. They had these 10 corned beef sandwiches. He decided to stick around and he told people he is an interpreter for the israeli press. , there was a press Conference Held at midnight that night in which chief curry brings Lee Harvey Oswald. There is a picture of ruby right to their right there. In those days, they did not have computers. He is there with paper. His pocket atl in that time. Thing,e his next which i will share with you, he somehow decides that the billboard on one of the dallas a bigs, freeways, billboard. He goes out. 3 00 in theut morning, his roommate, a guy by the name of george, gets him to go out and take a photograph of the billboard. He then goes down to his nightclub. He gets this guy taking care of his dogs ruby was a great dog lover, owned a seven dogs and they go out to take a picture at morning ofin the this billboard because he thinks it is somehow connected with the and the ad assassination. He notes the po box that is on the billboard. He goes with george to the dallas post office. He want someone to tell him who owns this post office box number. Ok. Fast forward it is sunday morning at about 9 30. He gets a telephone call from one of his strippers who lived in fort worth. Lynn had not been paid because ruby had closed his nightclub. Her landlord was pressing her for money. She needed money for food. Ruby said, ok. I will go downtown. He was still trying to find out what was happening with this assassination and oswald. He goes to the Western Union office, which is one block away from where oswald is being held by the Dallas Police. He stands in line, gives them 25,he five dollars, sends the money, and four minutes before he shoots oswald, he is there at the Western Union office. If this was a planned, conspiratorial shooting, you have got to think about this a little bit. In addition, i should tell you, in this trip down to the Western Union office, he brought his favorite dog, shiba. He left of the dog in the car in dogparking lot left the in the car, in the parking lot. You have to decide the answer to the question yourself, but i will tell you what the decision as on jack rebel, who was Dallas Police officer, who basically was in charge of looking after organized crime in dallas. Before thetified House Select Committee of assassination, the one howard referred to that conducted its investigation in 1976, jack ruby was asked the question about whether ruby was involved with organized crime. Here is his answer. Member ofby was a organized crime, organized crime needs a new hr director. Thank you very much. Thank you. [applause] those stories are remarkable. Remarkable. Last 49 years, once in a while, i give a little talk about the Warren Commission. Anniversary. Ome it sort of reminds me of my father, who was Justice Stanley mosk. He gave the commencement address at usc. After he gave his address, a students mother came down and said, justice mosk, every speech you give is better than the next one. [laughter] i was a , ier graduating law school was one of the few people who ended up in the military at that time. I was a little bit younger. I was languishing at Amarillo Air Force base. That is the time when the assassination took place. I had some time between when i was going to be released and when i was going to begin a i wrote the commission and said, can i be of any help . Ultimately, they accepted. I did not know the chief justice. My father and he were friends and i also was a friend of his. That certainly helped. I went back to california, i had to go to my air force base there. I was going to i went in uniform. I was going to fly a redeye to get to washington in my uniform so i could go for free. I didnt realize, howard did not tell me that they would pay my way. I went out to the base in this nice, shiny uniform. They said, mosk, youre going to. , which is kitchen patrol. Not only that, i had to do pots and pans. There i was, pretty grimy. I flew all might to get to washington. Doing pots and pans, i was ushered into the chief justices chambers, which was quite a difference. He told me, richard, the truth truth is our only client. That was his motto and that was the motto of all of us. I was like a firstyear associate at a law firm. You had the Senior Partners and the junior partners. I was the firstyear associate. That gave me the opportunity to work across every line. I worked very hard in those days. It was almost seven days a week, 12 to 14 hours a day. We all worked very hard. Motheres thereafter, my told the chief justice, richard really worked hard. When he went to get married, he left on a friday night, got married saturday, drove back sunday, and was at work on monday. She said, who gave him saturday off . On taking directions from Howard Willens. I worked on a number of things. I just want to quickly go through them. It shows the kinds of things that a firstyear associate at an operation like this worked on. I dealt with the authority to issue subpoenas and drafted the first subpoena. There were some oddball things. Theree dallas herald, were ads right before the assassination that said Something Like, running man, or some variation of that. It looked a little suspicious. I found out it was actually a sort of subtle ad for a Motion Picture titled running man. I also looked at all of oswalds reading material, his books, for example. Longf them was the hewiuie murder case. He actually was fairly well read. He checked them out of the library. , did a biography of oswald tracing his movements day by day. Instance, it turned up there was a picture of a lady from solving, california california, taking a picture in front of a russian church. Wesley harveyund oswald walking by. He happened to be in the photograph. I was wondering, how did this picture turn up . I have been told that in those days, when tourists went to russia, because we had so many in from so Little Information about russia, the agencies, the cia, or somebody, would ask all tourists to give them their pictures. I guess they went through all these pictures and found this thing, which was sort of amazing. I also, in order to determine whether or not oswald had any other sorts of income, which would suggest the possibility of a conspiracy, we checked into his finances. I tracked down all of his expenditures and all of his income. An irs agent we had put it in the form of an income and expense statement. It was all most embarrassing because it came out there had to be some estimate. It came out that his income and expenses were six dollars apart, which suggests there was no other income. Timetracked down his magazine subscription, which was four dollars, or something. I wanted to authenticate every expenditure. I called the magazine and asked for the head of circulation. I said, this is richard mosk, the head of the he said, what businesses that again . I said, the Warren Commission. We would like the subscription of Lee Harvey Oswald. He said, well, where does he live now . This is time magazine. [laughter] i also looked into his marksmanship ability. He had been a hunter as a young boy. He was in the marine corps and qualified as a marksman. He was in a hunting club in russia. He came back to the United States, he had this rifle. He used to go out, according to his wife, and practice. Inthose of you who live dallas can see, it was a relatively easy shot. With my limited military background, i think could master that. I also worked on a history of president ial protection. Allowed the, they president to be in an open vehicle. You would see films of him and shudder athutter the type of protection he had. I worked with dave in the state department. The proposal that the assassination of the president would be a federal crime. Unbelievably, at that time, although federal judges and other federal officials, the killing of them would be a federal crime, it was not a federal crime to assassinate the president of the United States. That is why it would have to have been tried in a state court. I did work on some of these evidentiary issues alluded to by the United States attorney on marital privilege, on the use of general walker, whether that would be admissible as a prior act or some other basis. I never quite understood why i did that assignment. We were not a court of law. Issues reallyy did not matter, although i suppose one could, with the exception of privileges, one could say it dealt with, or how validonstrued, as the evidence was, or how strong the evidence was. If it was not admissible in a court of law, maybe it wasnt very strong evidence, but in any event, i did those assignments. Basically, at the end, i did have to leave a little bit early. When i first came to the , myission, they said, well military obligation was that i had to go on weekends for duty. They shifted it to Andrews Air Force base. Russellssenator office and said, look, this is all one government. What would you rather have me do , work on the fascination assassination of president kennedy, the Warren Commission, federal government, or would you like me to spend my time on the weekends as a clerk typist, as an Airman First Class . You . Is more important to they said, you have to do your military duty. They finally said, well, we will let you off of it, but you have to make it all up. Pretty soon, you know, all of these weekends were starting to accumulate. I thought i might have to spend the rest of my life, you know, out at some air force base. I did leave the commission a little bit early. They asked me to come back for a week to help finish things up. Im very proud of the product that was produced, and very proud of my colleagues. I think they all worked very hard and diligently. I fully support the Warren Commissions conclusion. Thanks very much. [applause] dr. Pollak . Good morning. My1963, having completed as aship, i was working socalled special assistant in the Criminal Division of the Justice Department in washington. Howard willens was my boss at the time. Like just about everybody else alive at that time, i can remember very clearly learning of the shooting of the president because at that time, i was sitting in the office with howard. And with his boss, the head of the Criminal Division. We received word that the president had been shot. I was the youngest member. I was dispatched to the library what the basis of federal jurisdiction is, what the basis for the federal government to charge in the matter was. As richard just mentioned to you, the answer, which i quickly learned, was that there really was no federal jurisdiction. It was not, at the time, a crime to shoot the president. I dont know those of you who have seen the movie or read about what is in that movie, you remember the confrontation that took place between federal officials and the state officials as to the ability to remove the president s body. I am not really sure whether my had reachedward them at the time, but certainly the feeling was that the circumstances were grave enough. There really wasnt a basis for federal jurisdiction. After the shooting of oswald and the formation of the commission, became,as he indicated, initially, the emissary between the Justice Department and the commission. He asked me to join him over there and to work with the commission. A reflection of my own poor judgment, at the time, one of the deals i had struck when i agreed to work in the Criminal Division was that they were going to promise to send me to the u. S. Attorneys office to give me an opportunity and actually try a number of criminal cases. I was scheduled to do that. Howard asked me to join and i said, no. Tried er and i in the u. S. Attorneys office for several months. When that period ended, a few convictions under my belt, i c ame back. Howard contacted me again. Loaned fromnk, the Justice Department to the commission and worked there on the staff until the work was completed. I will say that, of all the things i had done before, of all the things i have done since, never has there been a more intense period of work in my personal life. It was 24 7. Seven days a week. Not all that much sleep. Long hours. It was a task that was taken by a group of colleagues that were equally devoted and conscientious. By the time i got there, the conclusion, the basic conclusions, were pretty much clear. Inre was not any real doubt anybodys mind as to the ultimate conclusion, but there were things that came down. My task, actually, i was involved primarily in the wri ting of portions of the report. Reorganizing, editing, writing. The instruction that i received, i recall very clearly, when i when puttings these things down in writing, it was essentially to go back and be sure that everything was documented and pinned down. Wherever you found any gaps where something was missing, to initiate followup investigations to pin down whatever was missing. And we did that. The humorousof things i recall is one of the and wethat was mentioned felt important was tracing the travels of oswald when he traveled down to mexico city, to try to be sure he had not come in contact with other people who might have been involved in some way. It had been reported that he had been seen on this bus eating bananas. And we said, wait a minute. If he is eating bananas, he must have gotten those bananas somewhere. Directive over to the fbi here and we wanted them to go through every grocery , all the way down to mexico city, with a picture of oswald, and ask them if they remembered this man buying any bananas. The fbi said, what are these young kids telling us to do . 26 years old. Wait a minute. They are wasting a lot of federal resources. But, we did our darndest to pin down all of the details. Remember, ipisode i was involved particularly in writing the portion of the repo ofdealing with the shooting the Police Department, whatever was going on in the Police Department at the time. I was sent down to the pentagon. Here they had the facility was fettered by an awful lot of media. It was bedlam. There was a lot of footage. Sitting in a room in the pentagon watching and watching in slow motion over and over again, every bit of that footage to see if we could detect any sign of anybody else in that room or doingoward ruby anything that suggested that they might have anticipated what was going to happen. Urs findingly, ho nothing in that footage that suggested any such thing. Receivedask that i toward the end, i was directed to go through the report and suggesting whether there were any deletions that ought to be made from the report , any materials that were included in the report that were either declamatory of individuals, or undue invasions of people privacy that really were not particularly relevant and were unduly intrusive for one reason or another. I submitted a long list of references to bystanders, criminal convictions, references to personal matters that really had no bearing. Interestingly, it was a long list. I forget exactly how many pages it was. But of all the suggestions i few, there were only very that were accepted. Most of it was kept in there. The whole objective of the report was to put out all the facts, not to conceal anything. Littley, there was very that was ultimately decided to be so irrelevant and so intrusive that it should be deleted. Having spent that since, i wass involved in a number of trials both as a lawyer and later as a judge. Work that goes into any trial, whether it is a criminal prosecution or any ,ther kind of trial, never never has there been an wasstigation as intense as taking place and took place with the commission. Time thereed over were imperfections. No one suggests that we were perfect. I think any lawyer who has ever tried a case, you walk into the ,ourtroom to start the trial you always have the feeling there is one more thing you could have done, should have done. You are never completely done with your work. I think what has happened subsequently, things we have learned since that investigation, proved that that is true there. The thoroughness and the intensity, the desire of task,ody involved in that to serve the truth, to lay out the whole story, was unquestionable. Think, as has been mentioned already, in the years since, although we have learned of some imperfections and some things we , in my know, nothing judgment, at least, has come to light in the almost 50 years ont cast any credible doubt the ultimate conclusions to which the commission came. , he actedone shooter alone, he acted without the involvement of another person. There was no question in my mind. And day. Orking night today, 50 years later, still no doubt. [applause] thank you so much. It has been my privilege to do nothing here today, but to enjoy all of this conversation. I do want to share with you, he wasjudge sanders the chief of Law Enforcement in texas at the time, he is not here. His conclusions with respect to what you were just talking about, he was asked in the horror history in the court of appeals about his offices involvement in the Warren Commission activities. He said, we were not involved with apprehending him. We were involved with them Warren Commissions said appear they set up in my office for a matter of few weeks until they got permanent quarters. I was very impressed with the thoroughness the way they were going about finding out all they could about who should be checked and i am satisfied they did everything they could