Let's Talk Sense About Oswald

...Bertrand Russell (who also intervened in this case) cites a principle famous in philosophy under the name of "Occam's Razor," which says: "It is vain to do with many that which can be done with fewer...

...In the following paragraph I would like to enter my own contribution to the conspiracy hunt, based exclusively 207 on the Warren Report, consistent with all its findings, and no more far-fetched than others now in existence...

...One may quarrel with the Commission's conclusions, but it is both unfair and erroneous to quarrel with its method...

...Lane's word (though again no witness) that Ruby and Tippit knew each other...

...Frankly, the critics of the Warren Report put a greater strain on my credulity than its defenders...

...My plea is that the Left should divorce itself from the disseminators of anxiety and return to its proper political business...

...In a nutshell—I can see the Dallas police getting busy to obliterate the traces of their little larcenies, bribery, moonshining as pimps and whatnot, and thereby incidentally obliterating also some clues to the Kennedy murder...

...In truth there is nothing especially virtuous in holding Oswald innocent...

...I don't challenge them to prove Oswald innocent...

...Liebeler could ask Mr...

...Moreover, as a historian I have learned to look for explanations that are a bit more complex than in West• ern movies or whodunits...

...They would have stressed evidence that supported their own theory and suppressed evidence that tended to contradict their case...

...Lane's misrepresentations at once in rebuttal...

...It also is well known that the MVD was a stronghold of unreconstructed Stalinists who considered Khrushchev's dealings with Kennedy as a danger to themselves and the socialist fatherland...

...These critics refuse to believe that one man was so crazy as to shoot the President...

...I see a limited number of possible theories: 1) Oswald was guilty of both the Kennedy and the Tippit murders...

...but they, too, are afraid that Oswald will spill the beans about their dealings with the Dallas underworld...

...The Warren Commission and its critics have not produced conclusive evidence of either Oswald's guilt or his innocence...

...However, if you think this far-fetched, we have Joachim Joesten's word (though no witness) that Oswald was in Ruby's pay and that Tippit was the man at the window on the sixth floor of the Texas Book Deposit Building...

...but I ask them not to pronounce the anathema on anybody who feels that the evidence weighs rather on the guilty side...

...For instance, Oswald may have been implausibly "lucky" if he really wanted to hit the President...

...Fortunately, the very thing that causes the embarrassment also offers the escape hatch: let Ruby pose as an outraged patriot who summarily executes the President's assassin...

...Only in novels must all subsidiary actions be related to the main action...

...Lane feels no obligation to present the full truth as he knows it...

...And instead of reading the Report, you make a facile show of your "critical mind"—and for that purpose you just have to agree that Oswald cannot be the assassin if the FBI says he is...

...Ruby shoots and the police cover up all other traces—not to save Kennedy's murderer but Tippit's...

...At the public symposium to which Mr...

...I am merely asking them to consider what else must be true if their theories are true...

...The assignment of a commission is to submit all evidence that has come to its attention, and to leave judgment to the public...

...Why does he not apply this maxim to the present case...

...3) In addition to Oswald, a second person was implicated in either crime, or in both...

...Let us try to talk sense...

...It ought to be possible to take seriously the more consequential criticisms of the Warren Commission without believing that all of its critics are competent, or that all are competent at all times...

...The beauty of this theory is manifold...

...What the critics wish to prove is a conspiracy of quite a different sort—one that involves at least the Dallas police, but if possible high officials in the FBI and CIA or their connections with the John Birch Society or the Ku Klux Klan, something that would really prove a crisis of government or the kind of collusion that existed in the 210 Dreyfus case...

...4) Oswald was not the Kennedy assassin, but the Tippit murder was connected with the Kennedy murder...

...One critic even includes Kennedy's friend and assistant, Kenneth O'Donnell, who had picked the fateful route of the President's motorcade in Dallas...

...they require us to take their assumptions on faith...

...members of any new commission are not likely to disagree with the first one on fundamentals...

...On the contrary, since its principal witness, Marina, could not be heard in a court of law, it is doubtful whether Oswald could be pronounced guilty "beyond a reasonable doubt...

...On neither occasion did he mention or sign any name...

...Those who ask for a "new commission" do not know what they want...

...Automatic responses take the place of criti cism...

...I do not believe that there is always one cause, one bad guy, one evil planner, or at worst one gang of conspirators who are responsible for all we know...

...But here is what I mean by "assumptions": Would several killers have fired only four shots...

...I am afraid the doubt will remain, and even the eventual release of the X-rays will not resolve it...

...For all I know and from what I have gathered from the critics, Ruby may have thought that he did not kill Oswald but Crafard—his employee who mysteriously disappeared on November 23 and who, according to the critics, "resembled Oswald" and may have "impersonated" him at the rifle range and at the furniture store...

...Theories (4) , (5) , and (6) fail to account for much of the available evidence and have to resort to constructions that are contradictory...

...The critics have to prove that the gaps in the Warren Report point to a conspiracy of this kind, but it is unlikely that a new commission can find such proofs...

...They assure Ruby that he will be a national hero the next morning...

...Everything fits...

...For we must give this much credit to the Warren Report: though in places it may read like an indictment of Oswald, it has provided much evidence that runs counter to its main contentions...

...But imagine for a moment what might have happened if Mark Lane had been allowed to cross-examine...

...We all know that the facts about Oswald's military record, his dealings with the U.S...

...but we can imagine Ruby's shock when he hears that Oswald (or Crafard) has been arrested for murdering Tippit...

...Lane on a subsequent program: "Why did you show this misleading film...

...but if he wished to hit the Governor, he scored only once in three or four shots...

...6) Oswald was "framed," or there was a "second Oswald...

...2) Oswald was guilty of the Kennedy murder, but the Tippit murder was unconnected with this crime...

...Really everything fits, and in addition, the theory does away with the implausible assumption that Oswald killed Tippit after killing the President...

...After all, first things come first: since there was to be an investigation of the Dallas police, its greatest collective worry must have been to conceal its petty wrongdoing...

...Theories (2) and (3) allow for the possibility that the Dallas police has been all too eager to convict Oswald and therefore may have tampered with the evidence...

...Since they could not get at Khrushchev, they decided to liquidate his partnerin-crime, and thus to revive the Cold War...

...But where, under this theory, is the connection with Ruby...

...The government would appoint such a commission only to do what the critics charge the Warren Commission had been assigned to do—to quiet anxiety...

...As a true believer of the Left I am expected to doubt the Commission's good faith, or even to charge it with deliberate fraud, falsification, suborning of witnesses, and suppressing the truth...

...But this is as it should be...

...Of course, the MVD would also welcome a chance to pin the blame on a "Trotskyite...

...It is consistent with all the facts 208 of the Warren Report plus the observations of its critics: the laxity of the police, its slovenly procedure, its confusion and contradictory statements, its possible connections with the conspirators, especially Ruby and Oswald...

...IRVINC HOWE...

...but they still admit that the overwhelming weight of hard-core, incontrovertible evidence points to Oswald...

...but they also have presented other evidence that casts doubt on their view, and in most cases they have stated why they gave preference to one witness rather than the other...

...In real life, in history and in politics, many things happen side by side without necessarily being connected...

...And unless new evidence comes to light, there is no point in setting up a new commission: the witnesses whose memories have been proved inaccurate are not going to change their testimony...

...The Warren Report requires us to make a few assumptions which it frankly states it cannot prove conclusively...

...They all assume a conspiracy so farflung that it seems impossible to believe no one has talked yet...

...The Dallas police would not have the slightest interest in covering up such a "conspiracy...

...The beauty of it is that we don't need any such connection...

...Moreover, we must beware of assumptions that seem natural but may not be warranted...

...and even if another person was involved, that person could have been there only with Oswald's knowledge and help...

...He may not care about the President...

...Apart from the entire Dallas police, the conspiracy must have involved the doctors of the Bethesda Hospital, the FBI, the Secret Service, the staff and members of the Warren Commission...

...Contrary to wide-spread misconceptions, the Warren Report is not a one-sided brief for the prosecution...

...In a courtroom, the prosecuting attorney would expose Mr...

...I am asking them to circumscribe exactly the area where honest men can honestly disagree with the Report, its methods, or its findings...

...and has answered twice, "Some milling around...

...To tell the truth, I am rather dissatisfied with the Tippit story, which many others too have called the Warren Report's weakest point...

...The TV audience, however, had to wait until Mr...

...But this is precisely what they have not done...

...History deals in small change, and it is one of its ironies that Oswald was first arrested for a crime he may not have committed, then indicted for a crime lie probably did commit, and then again shot for a suspicion that had only a tenuous connection with either crime...

...any night club owner in the world will tell you...

...Who actually shot Tippit we don't need to know...

...Here may be my greatest difficulty with the critics of the Warren Report...

...Finally, it should be made clear that Oswald was not found guilty by a court of law and that the Commission does not say that a court would have found him guilty...

...even if a second investigation could be conducted more leisurely and more carefully, even if it were to follow the hundreds of minor tracks which some have suggested it should explore, it would hardly arrive at more solid and substantial conclusions...

...But suppose Oswald had "conspired" with another nut...

...Ten books and a play vie for attention, and a sensation-hungry public will not be satisfied unless someone finds "the conspirators...

...What their business was is not difficult to guess...

...A Statement Since Mr...

...Critics of the Warren Report would still shout "whitewash," though their crit206 icism will still have to be based on the Commission's 26 volumes...

...Speaking of the number of shots, the critics have concluded that more than one assassin must have been at work because Oswald could not have fired as many shots as some people seem to have heard...

...Embassy in Moscow, and the Soviet government's file on his activities in Russia have not been fully published...

...so they must believe in hundreds who were even crazier—to believe that such a conspiracy could be kept secret...

...Apparently Crafard knew too much about Ruby's dealings with the police...

...Nor could it prove the absence of such a conspiracy, because negatives are not susceptible of conclusive proof...

...Just remember how people had to prove to the late Senator McCarthy where they had not beenl) It is unfortunate that we have to accept the contingency—the coinciding of accidental factors that may not fit our craving for logical order...

...The case against Theory (1) has been aptly presented by the critics...

...but he is afraid that Oswald's lawyer will find out all about Ruby's dealings with the Dallas police...

...By contrast, Mr...

...All other theories require us to make innumerable assumptions which not only are implausible but impossible, and they do not even admit that these are assumptions...

...Sauvage invokes my name, let me briefly—before rumors start multiplying— state that I favor reopening the Oswald case because enough doubt has been cast on the competence and accuracy of the Warren Report to make desirable a full-scale review of its work...

...But I cannot see a large police force cooperating with a crazy killer...

...The policemen, too, may not care about Kennedy...

...and Lane answered that he was only the attorney for the defense...

...Sauvage refers, I described as "inept" the presentations which several critics of the Report, among them Mr...

...But it could not discharge such an assignment very satisfactorily...

...and since he was a shady character, such as Ruby would employ, the latter may have thought that Crafard used the aliases of Oswald and Lee...

...but on the second occasion he not only knew the birthday of Oswald's baby but even had procured a wife who "looked like Marina...

...With a single exception— the discovery of two witnesses who reported the Tippit murder to the police, and these had not actually seen the shooting—the case for Oswald has been built exclusively on material contained in the Warren Report...

...It is not far-fetched to assume that (if Oswald was a CIA agent) Marina had turned him into a "double agent...

...5) Oswald was the instrument of a larger conspiracy and had accomplices in the assassination...

...The trouble with all these theories is that they need Oswald's cooperation on the sixth floor of the Book Depository Building...

...Allegedly, this witness tried to tell the Commission that this drew his attention to the spot, but the interrogator "cut him short," obviously to prevent such testimony from getting into the record...

...When he tried to say once more that his attention was drawn to the spot, the interrogator indeed went on to other matters...

...We have Mr...

...They have stated their own opinion...

...Here is his own admission: In order to establish that shots came from the "grassy knoll" ahead of Kennedy's motorcade, he shows on film a witness who claims that he saw "puffs of smoke...

...Lane's business is to discredit the Warren Commission, and there seems to be a national prize contest on who can dig a wider credibility gap...

...I think it altogether possible, or even probable, that the Tippit murder was not connected with the Kennedy murder at all...

...The main stumbling blocks of this theory are, in my opinion, Oswald's extraordinary "luck" as a marksman, and our inability to account for the "bullet on the stretcher...

...They also may secretly hope that he will be accidentally killed right after the killing...

...The number of assumptions they have to make to prove the conspiracy theory is multiplying every time one seriously look$ at such a theory...

...For in stance, to prove that Oswald was framed, we are told that someone "looking like Oswald" drew attention to himself on a rifle range and in a furniture store...

...Unable to prove anything, it might end up doing no more than providing a platform for crackpots...

...The Commission record, however, shows that this witness was asked twice, "What drew your attention to this place...

...this is neither the Dreyfus nor the Sacco and Vanzetti case...

...He had no alibi...

...The worst is not that he might have turned the Commission hearing into the kind of circus he has staged on television: in response the Commission staff would have done precisely what he accuses them of doing...

...Astute, I must say, and as compelling as any para-noid's world machine: everything that happened in the month of November, 19-63 had been well planned by an infernal omnipotent, almost universal conspiracy...

...But we know that Marina's uncle was a high Soviet intelligence officer and that both governments showed unusual consideration in facilitating the family's coming to the United States...

...If it were, its critics might properly ask for a contradictory procedure where defense lawyers can cross-examine and introduce their own witnesses...

...And I am 209 asked to believe the most far-fetched, impossible fantasies—all because on the Left you are supposed to have a Pay lovian reaction to official reports...

...I am not asking the critics to provide a perfect theory and to prove it...

...Sauvage, made at that occasion...