NOTICE: This document is the sole and exclusive copyrighted property of Robert G. Vernon and may not be copied, reproduced or duplicated in any form without the written permission of Robert G. Vernon, 2609 Coffee Tree Court, Antioch, CA 94509. Violation of this copyrighted material and notice may result in criminal and civil litigation and the violator may be subject to jail or fines, or both.

© 1999 dcp/Truth, Truth, Truth, Inc/ Robert G. Vernon/ICU All Rights Reserved

ABOUT THIS TRANSCRIPT

On March 22, 1994, television producer Robert G. Vernon videotaped the confession of James E. Files during which Mr. Files confessed that he fired the fatal last shot into the right front temple of John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963 in Dealey Plaza, Dallas Texas. A transcript of Mr. Files's confession follows. Included in the transcript is documentation and research (in italic font) based on existing evidence uncovered by leading JFK assassination researchers and authors. The purpose of this writing is to compare the confession of James E. Files to a majority of the evidence that has been uncovered in the last 34 years relative to the assassination. Readers are invited to review the following and to judge the veracity of Mr. Files's confession for themselves.

A NOTE ABOUT REFERENCES

References in the text are numerically keyed to the bibliography. Each reference is assigned a number and is listed by that number in the bibliography. When a reference is cited in the text, the references's bibliographic number is given. Page numbers, if any, appear after the reference number. If the entire reference is being cited, then only its number is given. For example, Mark Lane's book Rush to Judgment is listed as reference number 4 in the bibliography. If the entire book is being cited, the citation will look like this: (4). If pages 221-224 are cited from the book, the citation will appear as follows: (4:221-224). The only exceptions to this method are when information is cited or quoted from the Warren Commission's report and from the appendices to the report of the House Select Committee on Assassinations. Citations from the Warren Commission's report will be given as WCR, followed by the page number(s). Thus, WCR 32 refers to page 32 of the WCR. For the HSCA volumes, the volume number will be given, followed by the abbreviation HSCA and the page number(s). Thus, for example, 6 HSCA 110-111 refers to pages 110-111 of volume 6 of the appendices to the Select Committee's report.

TRANSCRIPTION

VIDEO TAPED CONFESSION OF JAMES E. FILES

March 22, 1994

Present: James Earl Files - Inmate, Robert G. Vernon - Producer, Bob Baxter - Cameraman, Mike Krolikiewicz - Prison Clinical Services

Location: Stateville Correctional Center, Illinois State Penitentiary, Joliet, Illinois

Time: 10:30 AM CST

Q: Please tell me your name.

A: My name is James Files and I changed my name basically at the end of 1963 for purposes of ...let me rephrase that. I took the name Files in 1963, my real name is James Sutton.

Q: Say that again.

A: My real name is James Sutton but I changed my name in late 1963 due to the fact that at that time I wished to get married and raise a family.

Q: And what is your name now?

A: Today, I'm incarcerated and I'm under the name James E. Files. I raised a family under that name, James Files.

Q: Did you change your name for any particular reason or anything involved in your past?

A: I changed my name for a particular reason because I had been working with a radical Cuban group and what we wanted to do at that time was to protect my identity so they wouldn't know who I really was when I got married because of my family life. I didn't want anyone to retaliate on the things that we were doing so I took on a different name that was authorized to me through a government agency.

Q: Were you ever in the armed services?

A: I was in the 82nd Airborne. I went in '59...1959, date of entry...January and in July 10 of 1959, I believe it was July 10, we shipped out to Laos. I was 82nd Airborne.⁽¹⁾

Q: What were some of your duties?

A: My duties at that time...we were working a special operations group to work with the Laotian Army in Laos at that time. I was there strictly as an advisor..on training...with small automatic weapons...setting detonators, explosives, mechanical ambushes. There was just a handful of Americans working with the Laotians at that time.

Q: How long did you serve there?

A: I was there through...approximately 14 months I was in Laos..before I came home.

Q: You mentioned to me at one time that you were in jeopardy of being court martialed could you elaborate on that a little bit?

A: I really don't wish to elaborate on that part of the court martial. It had to do in the field but not of cowardice, it was something that I did to hold face with the Laotian Army.

Q: Could you tell me how you first became involved in organized crime activities?

A: Well, I first became...it''s a strange way to start out...but I was racing stock cars and driving at a local track and Mr. Nicoletti had taken a shine to my driving and he'd watched me on several occasionsand he had asked me once if I would drive him one evening. I took him out and test drove his car that we'd just picked up..a brand new Ford...and he was pretty well pleased with my driving and from then on I became more like an assigned driver to him and I did several drivings for him on different jobs that he did.

Q: Who was Charles Nicoletti?

A: Charles Nicoletti, at that time, he was an up and coming figure with organized crime and he was known as one of the local hitman. As far as I'm concerned he was the best that ever lived, as far as I'm concerned.⁽²⁾

Q: What Mafia family did he work for?

A: He was out of the Chicago family.

Q: Who would have been the boss of the Chicago family?

A: At that time, Tony Accardo.

Q: That's before Giancana or after Giancana?

A: Tony Accardo handed it up...headed it up....then Giancana came after that. Giancana at that time was one of the underlings, I guess you might say he was the...one of the top lieutenants at that point. Things were handed out in different branches in organized crime such as someone might handle the liquor license, someone would handle the loan sharking and booking, someone would handle the contracts for murder for hire and anything like that.⁽³⁾

Q: James, where were you on November 22, 1963?

A: On November 22, 1963, I was in Dealey Plaza. I arrived at Dealey Plaza shortly before 10 AM that morning.

Q: What was your reason for being there?

A: My reason for being there at that point was to look the area over. I had driven a vehicle down there and I had taken several weapons to Dallas, Texas.

Q: For what purpose did you do this?

A: I did this for the sole purpose for the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

Q: Who instructed you to do this, James? Tell me the story...in your words...

A: The story started back....oh, roughly six months prior to that when Mr. Nicoletti contacted me one evening and I had met with him and he instructed me that we was going to do a friend of mine. It was more like a personal joke because I had never liked John F. Kennedy since the Chianos Bay affair which was the Bay of Pigs.

Q: Were you at the Bay of Pigs, Jimmy?

A: No, I was not at the Bay of Pigs but I had helped train several of the operatives that were involved at the Bay of Pigs.

Q: When you say "helped train them" what do you mean?

A: I helped train them on what they call..we called it "Gator Ridge" back then, some people refer to it as "No Name Key" some people call it "Assassin Ridge" it was in the Everglades down there in Florida.⁽⁵⁾ We worked solely with the Cubans at that time...we had supplied them with weapons...the weapons had come basically from the government...from the CIA...they had been heavily involved in that. And at that time, David Atlee Phillips was my controller. So I had never liked Kennedy since he had backed out on us and we didn't get enough firepower and I felt that we had been betrayed.⁽⁶⁾ But, I, at that point, I had never even considered killing anybody at all over the situation, but when Charles Nicoletti told me that we were going to do my friend, I thought that they were referring to a local party in town and I said why what the hell did he do. He laughed, he says no not him, we're going to do John F. Kennedy, the president. I was a little bit shocked at first but I said hey fine, great, don't matter to me. I was game for anything he wanted to do. And then we discussed it and then he asked me what I thought about Johnny Rosselli⁽⁹⁾ working with us and I told him hey fine I like Johnny..got no problems there.

Q: So you knew John Rosselli before that day?

A: I knew John Rosselli before that day.

Q: How did you meet him?

A: I had met John Rosselli in Miami and discussed a few things with him and he...I had met him through David Atlee Phillips...David Atlee Phillips was an operative for the CIA. Through time everybody got to be fairly well good friends but I grew up basically under Chuck's wing...Mr. Nicoletti's wing. Chuck had told me we were going to do it. We'd first originally planned to do the assassination in Chicago but a lot of people didn't like that idea so then it was moved to another location.

Q: When you say "we planned it" could you clarify "we"?

A: Well when I say we...I was just with Mr. Nicoletti. Whatever he said do, I would do. When I say we, I'm referring like...the only thing I did was just drive the car or whatever that they needed me for. Mr. Nicoletti had asked me then at that point when we'd decided not to do it in Chicago and it was going to be moved to Dallas...when John F. Kennedy had decided to go to Dallas...a week in advance, I took the '63 Chevrolet that we had at that time..I left and I went down a week earlier. I picked up the weapons from the storage bin that we had and loaded them in the car with everything that I thought we might need..with a various assortment...and I left and I drove to Dallas. I stayed out at a place in Mesquite, Texas.⁽¹¹⁾ Once I got there, I called back and notified Mr. Nicoletti that I was thee and on the scene. The following day, Lee Harvey Oswald came by the motel where I was at...they had given him my location...and he took me out to a place somewhere southeast of Mesquite where I test fired the weapons and calibrated the scopes on anything that might be needed. Then he was with me for a few days in town there...we drove around...so I would know all the streets and not run into any dead ends streets if anything went wrong and we had to flee from the area.

Q: So Lee Oswald spent time with you...he knew why you were there, you knew why he was there...?

A: Lee Harvey Oswald knew that I was there but I never told him why I was there. He had just been come over and told to stay with me and to help me out and to assist in any way he could. Lee Harvey Oswald and I never discussed the assassination of John F. Kennedy. I discussed that with no one. Because my part of it...I had no part of the assassination at that time...all I did was go down, take the car down, take the weapons down, clean the weapons, calibrate the scopes, make sure everything was functioning properly and then know the immediate area surrounding Dealey Plaza back to the expressways and the other local highways that could be used as an extraction point to leave Dallas in case something should go wrong. At that point, I had no involvement at all in the assassination outside of that...just doing my little job that I had to do.

Q: Could you give me the exact chronology of what happened from the time you arrived in Dallas...? You've already said that you went out and test fired some guns and things...take me back to maybe November 21, the day before, and in your own words, tell me what happened from November 21, 1963 until the night of November 22, 1963...

A: We go back...November 21, I had everything pretty well set up on my end of it as far as knowing the area, knowing the streets, memorizing a lot of the major points there and intersections... crossing railroad tracks and trestles and things... I had the weapons prepared and ready to go, I had those installed in the car where I wanted them. Everything had been calibrated..all ammunition had been set and ready to use. I got a good nights sleep that night, the following morning I got up early and I went to the Dallas Cabana Hotel to pick up John Rosselli...I'm going to say somewhere shortly around 7:00 that morning, maybe a few minutes past seven...and I picked up Johnny Rosselli and we drove from the Dallas Cabana to Ft. Worth, Texas to a pancake house⁽¹²⁾ they had there just off the major highway. We went there to meet someone...I did not know who we was meeting...But he had already told me...Johnny Rosselli said we was going to meet a man by the name of Jack Ruby...that he had some things that we had to pick up. When we got there, Johnny Rosselli told me he said...I'm going to go in and sit in a booth...he says you wait and come in later...he said sit somewhere else where you can keep an eye on me...in case something goes wrong, I want you to cover my backside. So I positioned myself..after Johnny Rosselli went in...I sit at the counter...ordered a cup of coffee and sit there and waited. This real heavy set gentlemen came in and he went over and he knew Johnny Rosselli I assume cause they shook hands, they talked for a minute and they sit down in the booth together. They passed over, I'm gonna say probably a 5 x 9 envelope...manilla envelope that had some material in it, at that point. After a couple of minutes, he got up, they shook hands, he left. I went out into the parking lot, made sure the air was clear, started the car up, pulled up by the door, Johnny Rosselli come out and got in the car. I never met Jack Ruby, never said hello or anything. Johnny Rosselli got in the car with me and we started back to Dallas. He opened the envelope up and there was identification in there for Secret Service people and we had a map in there of the exact motorcade route that would take it through Dealey Plaza. Johnny Rosselli said well they only made one change.⁽¹³⁾ That was when he informed me they was coming off of Main Street on to Elm or on to Houston there...they made the zig-zag, the little turn that they should have never made. But when they made that, it was the only change in it. I drove him back to the Dallas Cabana, he went upstairs and I waited for Mr. Nicoletti to come down. Mr. Nicoletti came down and got in the car with me and we drove to Dealey Plaza. We got to Dealey Plaza shortly before ten o'clock. From there we parked the car...it had been drizzling rain that morning...kind of a cool morning out...I had parked the car beside the Dal-Tex building, Mr. Nicoletti and I got out and we walked up and down the complete area of Dealey Plaza, we covered every corner, walked by the buildings, looked over several different things. We were just talking, having casual talk about the weather and everything. At about 10:30, Mr. Nicoletti asked me how would I feel in supporting him...in backing him up on this...and he told me I wouldn't fire unless it became extremely necessary. I told Mr. Nicoletti, Jesus, I'd be honored to do anything to back you up. He asked me if you was to be outside here, where would you position yourself at in Dealey Plaza? I told him, I said well, from looking everything over and from walking it in the week I've been down here, I think I would choose up there behind the tree behind the stockade fence on the high ridge by the knoll up there. He says why there? I says well I've got the railroad yard in back of me, we've got a parking lot there and I've got a place to where I could stash whatever I would need. I said I can pass myself off as a railroad worker in the railroad yard for the time being until that time comes and nobody would really pay any attention to me.⁽¹⁴⁾ He asked me then where do you think would be the best place for me? I said well, I think the Dal-Tex building...with the new change in it...I say I think the Dal-Tex building over there...that building would give you the best advantage point there. He said I think so too. So we took a walk over, went through the parking lot over by the tracks, walked around through there and he seemed pretty well pleased with that. Then at that point, oh it was about 11:10, he asked me what weapon would I choose to use over there. I told him I would like to use the Fireball. He said why that one? He said you've only got one shot. I said one shot's all I'm gonna get anyway if I wait until the last moment of fire and I may not fire, I said, and it's easy to conceal and I carry it in a briefcase and nobody will pay any attention to me and it's easier to walk away from there. And that's exactly what we did at that point. Shortly before noon, we went back to the vehicle, I took the briefcase out and turned my jacket inside out, I went back into the yard...the railroad yard there...I secured the briefcase, then I hung out back there and I walked down on the grassy knoll, no one paid any attention...people were gathering. Shortly before the motorcade came, I went back up there and started securing myself in a better position so I'd be able to reach the attache case at that point ...the briefcase...I knew once that I opened the briefcase up and pulled the weapon out, nobody's gonna be looking at me, the motorcade would be coming...making its first time...and I wouldn't have to remove the Fireball from the briefcase until approximately... they made the first turn on Elm Street there and I would have plenty of time at that point.⁽¹⁵⁾ At that point when they started proceeding down Elm Street, shots started being fired from behind. I assumed that it was Mr. Nicoletti because he was the one that was in the building and I knew that Johnny Rosselli was there. I remember the shots ringing out and even though the President was being hit with the rounds, I was considering it a miss because I knew that we were going for a head shot on the President. I had known that he had been hit in the body but I didn't know what part at that time. I seen the body lurch and I saw the body lurch again, I heard another shot that missed. We were supposed to hit no one but Connally, I mean no one but Mr. Kennedy. I guess Gov. Connally got hit with one of the rounds at that point. I wasn't even sure of that because I was keeping Kennedy as best I could in the scope on the Fireball. When I got to the point where I thought it would be the last field of fire, I had zeroed in to the left side of the head there that I had because if I wait any longer then Jacqueline Kennedy would have been in the line of fire and I had been instructed for nothing to happen to her and at that moment I figured this is my last chance for a shot and he had still not been hit in the head. So, as I fired that round, Mr. Nicoletti and I fired approximately at the same time as the head started forward then it went backward. I would have to say that his shell struck approximately 1000th of a second ahead of mine maybe but that what's started pushing the head forward which caused me to miss from the left eye and I came in on the left side of the temple. At that point, through the scope, I witnessed everything, matter and skull bring blown out to the back on the limousine and everyone on television watching saw Jackie Kennedy crawl out there to get it. I watched her hold it in her hand, crawl back on to the car, I put the Fireball back into the briefcase, and closed it up, I pulled my jacket off, reversed my jacket so I would have, instead of the plaid side out, I would have the gray like a dress jacket more or less and I put a cap on my head, my hat, to walk away, carrying a briefcase.

Q: How did you exit the plaza?

A: When I exited the plaza, I walked to the edge of the stockade fence, I did not walk down the steps, I walked back over, crossed the grass to the dead end street that ends there by the parking lot and I proceeded to, I believe that's Houston, crossed Houston, went into the Dal-Tex parking lot. When I got into the car, Mr. Nicoletti was already in the car and so was Johnny Rosselli. I got in the car and drove away.

Q: What happened to the shell casing that you fired at John Kennedy?

A: The shell casing that I fired at John Kennedy, when I took it out of the weapon, It's one of those moments when you feel like you're above everything else and I guess I was a little bit cocky with it all. I took the casing and I put it in my mouth whole I put another casing - cartridge - into that one. Before putting it into the case and as I started to leave, I took the casing and I bit down on the casing to leave teethmarks on it and I set the casing, as a symbol, right on top of the stockade fence which I know I should have never done but I did that. Over the years, through other people, I have left certain trademarks along the way.⁽¹⁷⁾ But the casing was mine and it had teethmarks on it and no one knew it was teethmarks here until recently in 1994. And they just had that examined to find out that it was teethmarks on there. But I left it more or less as a signature of my calling card.

Q: Your trait...?

A: You might say my trait...

Q: How did John Rosselli and Charles Nicoletti get into the Dal-Tex building?⁽¹⁸⁾

A: That I could not say but I would believe they went through the front door...we had a side door they would be exiting from and I had parked this burgundy colored Chevrolet there, the '63 that I was driving, I'd parked that in the lot there. But when they entered the Dal-Tex building I was not there, I was on-site, back into the railroad yard at that point.

Q: Are you sure that they were in that Dal-Tex building?

A: I'm positive cause I had the car parked there, they were going to come out through the door and put their weapon...well, Johnny Rosselli had no weapon...Charles Nicoletti was the one that carried the rifle in there. That had been secured and he put that back into the trunk of the vehicle. I knew that was in the trunk because it was still there when I got to the motel...I took it out....cause that was....the plan was for him to come back...put his in the trunk...I would have the briefcase, I would slide it under the steering wheel. Johnny Rosselli was sitting in the back seat...Charles Nicoletti was sitting in the right front passenger's seat...I opened the door of the Chevrolet...got in...and drove out. As I come out of the parking lot, I made a right hand turn on to Houston street.⁽¹⁹⁾

Q: Where did you go after that?

A: After that...I went...I don't remember just how many blocks I proceeded ahead...but I went...maybe five, six blocks ahead to a major street. I took a left...went up a few more blocks by the expressway where there was an intersection there...an underpass...they had a gas station there. They had another car waiting there for them. They got out of the vehicle I was in...they walked across the parking lot. I never saw which way they went. I turned from there, made a right...and I headed back out to Mesquite....and I went back to the hotel...pulled into the parking lot...parked my vehicle there...secured it...went to the room that I already had rented...that I'd been in all week....at that point I went in to clean...stripped myself...to shower...I used a hot wax to remove any resin from the skin pores...and when I finished with the details I had to do there...I waited until it was dusk...dark time...then I went out...I removed all the gun cases that had been put back into the car, brought everything into the unit...cleaned those...secured everything.. and later when it was after midnight and there was no activity, I went back out...I pulled the back seat from the car and I put the weapons back in behind the seat where they belonged where we had a compartment for'em...I went back in, went to sleep, waited till daylight....then I drove from there back to the southern part of Illinois...old 66 there...stayed overnight there then drove the rest of the way the next day into Chicago....cause I had been instructed in the beginning, when I went to Texas...not to be driving at night time...not to be pulled over by any police officers, not to speed, and to only travel during daylight hours...that there would be no questions asked. And I had always been good at following orders...and I used the same procedure going home.

Q: How much money were you paid for your participation on November 22, 1963?

A: Well, the money that I received for that job in Dallas...I had never asked for a specified amount, I'd never even asked for any money. I was just honored to do it with Mr. Nicoletti, but I had received $30,000 a short period thereafter....I don't remember....there was two or three weeks went by maybe a month even before I met him one evening...he gave me an envelope. I asked him what's this for...he said this is for down in Texas...He said you did excellent...the only thing he did...he criticized me once, he asked me...when I had left Dealey Plaza that day and got in the car with them...he says don't you think you over reacted and I says what do you mean and he says maybe you shot too fast because I know they didn't want a shot coming from the front...they tried to put everything from the back side. I told them at that point....I said it was my last chance for the option. I said if I didn't fire at that point...I couldn't fire without endangering Jackie.

Q: Jimmy, in Joe West's notes and in Don Ervin's interview notes with you and in what you told me before you told me you received $15,000....

A: $15,000....

Q: You just said thirty...

A: I just said thirty.

Q: How much did you receive?

A: All total...it was thirty.

Q: Are you telling me the truth?

A: I'm telling you the truth...I got $30,000 on the first part. I cut it in half from the beginning at fifteen because it was an awful lot of money back then and I didn't really think it would matter that much and I didn't never really plan to tell what money I got until I talked to Joe on that but the total figure was thirty.

Q: O.K. I just wanted to clarify it.

A: I'm clarifying everything now. We've been playing straight ball ever since...

Q: That's the only difference you've ever told me, right there....

A: Well, in the beginning I said 15 because I didn't think it mattered that much what the amount was...but since we've been playing square ball with everything else and I've given you everything that I have...I'm not going to go back on that part...I'm just going to give you the actual figure and that's what it was and I never received no more and no less...The next money I received after that was for something else that we had done. But like I say, as far as I know, the money I received was for Dallas...when he gave me that envelope because I never took checks, he gave me cash, and I usually got money every other week from him...just for local work around town.

Q: When did you first meet Lee Harvey Oswald?

A: I first met Lee Harvey Oswald in...God...it was back in early '63...we were running weapons down to....I believe it was '63...we were running guns down there when I first met him and I met him through David Atlee Phillips. Lee Harvey Oswald and I had never been friends at that point or anything. We became more friends that week in Dallas together. But I had met him down there in New Orleans⁽²⁰⁾ and outside of New Orleans in a little town and I believe it was called Clinton⁽²¹⁾ down there, cause I had been taking down some semi-automatic, .45 calibre burp guns they were made by...I believe Knoxville Arms at that time.

Q: Am I to understand that Lee Harvey Oswald was working for the CIA?

A: Lee Harvey Oswald had the same control agent...the same controller that I had, David Atlee Phillips...cause David Atlee Phillips introduced me to him.⁽²²⁾


Q: And so that means that you have worked for the CIA also...?

A: I had involvement with the CIA...yes.

Q: Can you talk about any of that?

A: I don't wish to touch base with the CIA and I think that some of the people that you have dealt with...you have recently found...confirming proof of what I have told you through their knowledge and what they found out about the CIA but I don't want to touch base or get back into the state of operations because it doesn't pertain to a lot of this other stuff.

Q: Did the CIA have anything to do with what happened in Dallas in 1963?⁽²³⁾

A: The CIA...someone in government organizations...had a heavy hand in it because they supplied Secret Service identification for different people...I don't know who used it but I saw the identification that day....that morning at the assassination. David Atlee Phillips had given me the Remington Fireball at that time back then...but not specifically for Kennedy. He had given me that weapon and it had been used prior to the assassination of John F. Kennedy when we had did some other work. I had used it...I believe that was the third time for Kennedy...would have been the third one...and whether it was used a few times since then. But at that point, I know a lot of people that see...knew Kennedy was going to be assassinated but whether they had planned it or ordered it or not, I have no idea who ordered his assassination.

Q: When you were in Dealey Plaza, did you see any other people there that you recognize that may have been involved with the mob or either with the CIA?

A: Yes, I did. I saw Frank Sturgis⁽²⁴⁾

...and at one point I'm going to say he was probably no more than 40, 50 feet away. Again later when I looked at him I was farther from the yard I was about 40 yards from him...maybe 35 yards away. I scanned the crowd....I saw him...he was still there at the time of the assassination and I was looking at him through a 3X scope also. I scanned the crowd to see if he was still there and he was there.

Q: Did you see anybody else there you recognized?

A: Yes, I did. Eugene Brading, he was there...James Braden some people referred to him as but I knew him as Eugene Brading.

Q: Why was he there?

A: That I have no idea. I never talked to the man there...never discussed anything with the man. But I know that he had been there with Johnny Rosselli and with Charles Nicoletti...because he was at the Dallas Cabana⁽²⁵⁾ that morning...and he had been out front talking to Johnny Rosselli when I pulled up in the Chevrolet.

Q: Why was Sturgis there?

A: I have no idea. I never discussed anything with Sturgis but I knew him very well and I know it was him.

Q: Did you ever see Sturgis with Nicoletti or Rosselli or was he involved in planning in any way or anything?

A: As far as I know Frank Sturgis had no involvement in the planning and I had never saw him speak with Mr. Nicoletti or Johnny Rosselli that morning although Sturgis did know John Rosselli but they wasn't together that morning to my knowledge.

Q: Did you know that Lee Harvey Oswald was on the 6th floor, Jimmy?

A: I did not know that Lee Harvey Oswald was on the 6th floor of the Book Depository that morning. I wasn't even sure he was in the building or anywhere around because I had not seen Lee Harvey Oswald that day.

Q: Did Nicoletti or Rosselli ever tell you that Oswald was part of the hit?

A: Chuck told me that Lee Harvey Oswald was going to show me around the area down there and that's why he...someone⁽²⁶⁾ had got a hold of Lee Harvey Oswald and told him where I was at the Mesquite hotel over there in Mesquite and he had showed up the second day I was in town. But like I say, Lee Harvey Oswald and I had never discussed anything about the assassination...even though I assume we both knew what was happening but we never discussed it....

Q: Is there anything you can tell me about the death of Officer J.D. Tippit?

A: I do not wish to touch base on that. I have no comment on that.

Q: Do you know who killed him?

A: Yes, I do.⁽²⁷⁾

Q: Is the man still alive?

A: The man that killed J.D. Tippit is still alive. He was alive as of three years ago. I haven't talked to him in the past three years. Lee Harvey Oswald did not kill J.D. Tippit.⁽²⁸⁾ Because the man that killed a police officer that afternoon had come by my motel and told me...he said that things got messed up today he said and I killed a cop...and my remarks to that was well you did what you had to do and he left shortly thereafter.

Q: So then there was one other person that was part of the team other than you, Nicoletti and Rosselli?

A: The person that I am referring to now was not a part of the team to assassinate JFK...as far as I know his job would have been to kill Lee Harvey Oswald from what I understood without asking any direct questions because I did not want to know what anyone else was doing. All I wanted to know was what my assignment was, what I was to do, and the least I know about other people, the better off I am because I didn't want very many people knowing who I was or what I'm doing.

Q: Would you have known who would have given him orders to kill Officer Tippit?

A: No, I would not because that contract would have come from a different source.

Q: Did you see Jack Ruby⁽²⁹⁾ in that plaza that day?

A: Yes, Jack Ruby was in the plaza that day.

Q: Where was he?

A: At one point he was standing on the same side with his back to me from the grassy knoll, down close to the sidewalk. But I didn't watch other people in the plaza that day, I scanned the crowd, I just seen a few faces...but I solely concentrated...the few moments that I had the weapon out looking through the scope, I was concentrating on the primary target. When that was over with I wasn't looking behind me to see who was coming or who was running. I remember that when the shots were fired and it was all over....nobody...nobody responded immediately...I don't care how fast they say the police acted, people were stopped...they were stunned...including the police officers. The police officers on the motorcycles, it took them, I'm going to say maybe ten seconds before they even responded to what was happening.⁽³⁰⁾

It was like everybody was waiting for someone to tell them what to do. And at that point I started to walk away. There had been a couple of people in the vicinity that I was in...I'm going to say probably 15 yards in front of me...close to the edge of the fence where I was at...and I was about 15 feet from the end of it...as I was walking away the police was running up the grassy knoll and other people and I know that these two men were turning people back. Who they were, I don''t know...I didn't bother to turn and look back...I kept walking away.

Q: Did you notice a man dressed in a suit and tie, and I believe he had a hat on, with a camera standing up on the pergola?

A: No. I did not notice him.

Q: I'm talking about Abraham Zapruder.⁽³¹⁾

A: I did not notice him. I was still walking...but if I would have seen someone making my picture at that point I don't honestly know what my reaction would have been...I know that after I had put the Fireball away, I know I had a Colt 45 inside my pocket on the left side of me...my briefcase was in right hand and I was prepared to shoot my way out of there if it came down to that....

Q: There was a picture made of you behind the fence. It was taken by Mary Moorman from across the street, you probably couldn't see her....does that surprise you?

A: Yes, it surprises me because I really figured that everyone who would have cameras would have been pointed at the motorcade because when I pulled my weapon from the briefcase...at that point...there's nobody standing down there looking at me or looking up at the knoll...everybody is waiting for the motorcade to make the turn to come down through there...everyone's excited...and the uproar and the people murmuring, the noise is louder at this point...and like I say there is no one looking behind them. Even the security and the police officers that are situated through the crowd, there's nobody looking at areas, there is nobody looking at rooftops, there is nobody looking at windows that I could see, everybody is concentrating strictly on the motorcade.

Q: I have a picture of you standing behind the fence, will you autograph it for me someday?⁽³²⁾

A: Someday...but not now.

Q: What type of shell was in that Fireball that you fired...and could you tell me about the Fireball?⁽³³⁾

A: The Fireball was designed basically in early '61...manufactured and produced...a few production models came out in '61 and '62...but the barrel was too thin and they kept exploding on us...and finally they got the barrel re-done, rebored to heavier...the material...and originally it went from a .221 to a .222 calibre which is nothing but a .22 shell over exaggerated and expanded for higher velocity...what it fired was a .221 and its called the XP-100 Fireball but it took a .222 casing. Its a single shot, bolt action pistol...scope mounted on it. It's a pistol that was actually way ahead of its time. If you was to see one, I don't know if they're going to show you a picture of one or not, but it is a very beautiful handgun and one of the most elite pistols I believe ever manufactured...although a lot of your people like .44 magnums and everything else.....and 357s....at this point I prefer a smaller calibre for something like that because at 100 yards the gun is very effective. 'Cause most people take a pistol to be only good for 30-40 feet and something you would use in a room but a Remington Fireball is more of a modified cutdown rifle.

Q: It shoots a regular shell...?

A: .222, it's a lot longer than your average .22 round that you put into a .22 rifle...and it's a special casing and you can not fire this through a .22 rifle...through a .22 calibre.

Q: .Now correct me if I'm wrong...the Remington Fireball XP-100 will fire both .221s and .222s?

A: Yes, they will...

Q: It takes some sort of modification though to fire a .222, what exactly does it take?

A: The barrel had to be reinforced...if you didn't have the barrel reinforced the barrel would....could possibly blow up in your face...

Q: Did you shoot a regular shell in it or was it some sort of loaded or modified shell...?

A: I shot a .222 with a mercury load in it.⁽³⁴⁾ We used a mercury load...the .222 was designed to fragmentate...but what a lot of people didn't realize at that time because the gun was still an early production model and didn't go on sale to the public until 1963...but the .222 had a habit...it would ricochet if it didn't get a direct hit...and we couldn't afford for something to ricochet...so that was why I...a friend of mine had made special rounds for me at that time and I had taken six rounds with me down there...whoever you hit at...if you've got any type of bone structure, the round would fragmentate and explode and the round would be traveling at approximately about 3100 feet per second...which meant you would get penetration and explosion...but without the mercury load and I did not get a direct hit...there is a strong possibility it would ricochet and I would not have time to reload and fire a second shot.

Q: Who gave you the orders to shoot JFK?

A: Charles Nicoletti...that morning at 10:30...and we didn't know if I was going to shoot then or not...I was only in there as back up in case something went wrong or they missed.

Q: Do you know where Mr. Nicoletti got his orders?

A: He got his orders from Sam Giancana.

Q: Would you have any idea where Mr. Giancana got his orders or if he even got an order?

A: I would have no knowledge of that whatsoever...

Q: Would Tony Accardo have been involved?

A: If Sam Giancana handed something out...I would say yes that Mr. Tony Accardo had to be involved...

Q: Would any of the other families have been involved or do you have any way of knowing?

A: I have no way of knowing...but I don't believe this is something that Mr. Giancana would engineer on his own...word had to come from somebody...who approached those people....I have no knowledge...I can only go back to the point of Mr. Nicoletti, Johnny Rosselli and myself at that point...and Lee Harvey Oswald and his part...showing me around the area...letting me know the major roads there and where I can go out and test fire a weapon...⁽³⁵⁾

Q: Has anybody paid you any money for this interview, Jimmy?

A: Nobody has paid me any money for this interview and I have asked for nothing.

Q: Why are you telling all of this, why are you coming forth with this after 30 years?

A: In the beginning of this, Mr. Joe West had got a lead on me and came to me...first he wrote me a letter...I denied any knowledge of it...told him he had me mistaken with someone else...and they had been calling the institution..the councilor came one day while I was on visit and wanted me to call somebody on the phone...I told him I'm here 365 days a year, don't bother me while I am on my visit, they can talk to me some other time or you can talk to me anytime you want to because I'm locked up here. The following day they come got me out of my cell and said they wanted me to call Mr. West. At that point I called Mr. West and I told him at that time, I said Mr. West you have approximately three minutes to convince me why I should even talk to you.

Q: That's exactly what you said....

A: And those are my exact words...

Q: I heard the tape...

A: Mr. West started talking to me on the phone and he started touching personal points and the phone calls in the prison are all recorded and I told him whoa, stop Mr. West if you wish to see me or talk to me...come see me, I don't want to talk on the phone no more. Mr. West immediately therefor came to visit me. The first day him and I sit and we talked basically about weather...sports...about a lot of other things because I refused to discuss the Kennedy assassination with him. He came back the second day...I felt more comfortable with him and he explained to me that he was getting the case reopened and that he was taking it back to trial that he wanted JFK's body exhumed....he had the petition for exhuming the body⁽³⁶⁾...he wanted to have me subpoenaed to testify in court if he could get the trial...the case reopened. At this point, I told him I said...if he could get me immunity...I said I can't talk about it for the simple reason I would be facing criminal charges. He told me that he had an excellent attorney and what they would do...they would try to proceed to get me immunity so that I could come forth and talk if I was subpoenaed. At that point we sit and we talked for awhile and finally I agreed that I would testify and come forward if they got me the immunity. Things didn't go accordingly as planned...I don't know how to say a lot of it...but the government went around the proper parties and they came to visit me and we had a situation that I don't want to touch base on at this time....my life has already been threatened over this whole mess...I'm giving this tape right now and I don't want to be identified at this time but I'm not coming forward for any patriotic causes but I'm coming forward only because of Mr. Joe West himself.

Q: Who has threatened you, Jimmy?

A: I have been threatened by both organized crime and by the government.

Q: Can you identify the people in the government who threatened you?

A: I wouldn't do that because I have never given up anyone in my life and I won't start now. If they wish to kill me then I have to accept the fate that comes with it. I will not finger point anyone or anything like that at this time.

Q: Has the FBI been here to visit you?

A: Yes, the FBI was here to visit me. The FBI has tried to discredit me on a lot of things but people that you have conversed with that has things...that I have given you information....not to put anybody in prison....I've given you information on special operations that was carried out by the government that no one could have possibly have known about...outside the agency itself and I believe that you have corroborated my story on several different aspects.⁽³⁷⁾

Q: Do you know anything about the death of David Ferrie?

A: Yes, I do but at this time I do not wish to discuss that....when we start talking about people dying. we're talking about murder and we're talking about a crime that has no statute of limitations on it. And as long as I have no immunity, there is not much that I can say about David Ferrie or a couple of other parties that I have been asked about....

Q: Well then, obviously you know who killed David Ferrie?

A: Obviously, yes I do know who killed David Ferrie. He died of a severial brain hemorrhage but the severial brain hemorrhage was brought on in a specific way and if they was to examine they would find out...and I have already stated at one point....where the tear in the tissue became in the severial brain hemorrhage and I am waiting for someone to confirm that.

Q: What's your really inner feelings about all this, Jimmy...as a person...as a human being?

A: As a person...as a human being...I just want everybody to forget about me...put it all behind me...I'm sorry anybody ever caught up with me or find out who I was or that what my involvement was.

Q: Why did you open up to Joe West?

A: Joe West is the type of person...you have to meet him and talk with him to really understand the man....but he's somebody that...just somebody that you like and you respect and you're willing to do what you can to help him. I've given Mr. West more than I've ever given anyone else in my life...and why?...I don't really understand except he's just that type of person...he has a magnetism about him...Joe West is a great man. I knew him a short time but the time that I've known him I felt like I knew him all my life. There was only two other men in my life that I really treasured or valued.....one was Mr. Nicoletti and the other man is still alive and I can't use his name...he's in his eighties...but he's a wonderful man and I would do anything either one of those men ever asked me to do...and when I say anything, I mean anything and everything.

Q: Do you have any remorse about what happened in Dallas in November of '63?

A: It's hard to have remorse for something that has been done...for so long ago...and at that time everyone felt was right. And if I didn't like someone...how could I have remorse for someone I didn't like?

Q: So you felt personally that Mr. Kennedy should have been taken out?

A: Oh, I felt that all along. But my reasons was specifically because of the Bay of Pigs. Me and a lot of other Cubans felt that way....because we felt betrayed.

Q: By John Kennedy...?

A: By John F. Kennedy. We had airborne waiting to go in...we had battle wagons ready...and they go no support whatsoever....they got slaughtered....they went to prison...they were captured, they were killed, they were punished...tortured....that's because Mr. Kennedy wouldn't......the President..... wouldn't give his word to go. And all he had to do was give the authorization....the Cuban deal was all over with....it was ours...but he took it from us....he had the power to say yes or no and he said no....he vetoed it.

Q: Did you ever know a man named Richard Helms?⁽³⁸⁾

A: Yes, I did....Deputy Director of the CIA.

Q: Did you ever know a man named Allen Dulles?

A: I know who he is but I never met him personally.

Q: Did you ever know a man named Antonio Veciana?

A: Yes, I did. I consider him to be a good friend of mine. And to my knowledge, Antonio Veciana was not involved in the assassination of JFK...whether he had knowledge or not, I do not know....but I know he was heavily involved with the CIA in many of their operations....certain groups....from the old Whitehand all the way through Alpha 66...to different groups we had.

Q: Was Mr. Helms involved?

A: Mr. Helms knew about the organizations but Mr. Helms gave me no directions direct from that. All my directives came from David Atlee Phillips because David Atlee Phillips was my controller.

Q: I understand that this is a serious question and I know you have already answered it once, but I just want to try and say it again...do you have any knowledge at all of the CIA participating in the hit on Kennedy?

A: The CIA never once told me that they were going to kill Kennedy...I never heard it from David Atlee Phillips or from anyone else.

Q: Do you know how Charles Nicoletti got to Dallas?

A: I do not know how Charles Nicoletti got there except for flying on commercial airlines. Johnny Rosselli flew in I know...specifically...on a MATS airline because he told me.⁽³⁹⁾

Q: On what kind of airline?

A: MATS....Military Air Service.....MATS is Military Air Transport Service is what it stands for...we call it MATS.

Q: Could you give me a full sentence on that?

A: Johnny Rosselli...the morning we were going to Ft. Worth....he told me he was in Washington...said I was in Washington yesterday, I got lucky...I said what do you mean lucky...he said I caught a MATS flight out....for people who don't understand MATS...that's Military Air Transport Service....it was a military flight and allegedly...like I say...I don't know who flew the plane, Johnny told me he was on it, but he said he was being flown in by the CIA....he said they flew him there...basically that's all I know of...and whether they had a flight going there or not...I don't know what that flight was all about, I never had knowledge and I never ask people what they're doing or where they've been or any questions. I've always lived my life believing in silence, I have believed in not knowing what the other man is doing. If you're doing something wrong, don't come tell me what you're doing in case you have a problem later.....and I live that way here in prison...I have prisoners come up and tell me we've got this coming and we've got that coming I tell'em man I don't want no part of it, I don't want to know what you're doing, don't tell me cause if you get snitched off I don't want you thinking that's it's me.

Q: Tell me in your own words about the package that Mr. Nicoletti gave you after the assassination.

A: After many, many years...several years...we started having a small problem...things were arising...we had the Senate Intelligence Committee was calling people back....the Warren Commission...everybody had been involved in a lot of things....we were getting a lot of static...and at this point, I kept myself totally obsolete, local, out of the highlight, the spotlight...the only two people that knew I was in Dealey Plaza that day for sure was Johnny Rosselli and Charles Nicoletti.

Q: Why do you think that is?

A: Well, we never went around telling people what we'd done....if we went out and we did something or we popped somebody or made a hit on them or whatever you want to call it...we didn't go sit around the tavern and brag about it or we didn't go down to the local restaurant and talk about what we had done...

Q: So, as far as Sam Giancana knew....Charles Nicoletti was the man who did the shooting?

A: That's all he knew. He knew that he was there and whether he knew that Johnny Rosselli was there or not, I don't know but I would say yes that he knew Johnny Rosselli was there....As far as I know the only thing that Sam Giancana knew for Dealey Plaza that day was the part of Charles Nicoletti and Johnny Rosselli because Sam Giancana had never discussed it with me...only Charles Nicoletti and Johnny Rosselli and I admit to that point...because we kept a very tight circle and we always thought that the less people know the better off we are...the safer we are....As the years went by, Sam got killed in June, I believe, in 1975, Sam Giancana...he was killed at his home in '75....Charles Nicoletti, excuse me....John Rosselli was next....he was killed, I believe, I don't remember the exact date but I know it was September, I believe of '76...and Charles Nicoletti...I'd remember that date because him and I were very, very close and he wasn't supposed to go out that night unless I was with him.....but he was killed at a restaurant in the west suburbs of Chicago at a place called the Golden Horns....and he was executed there that night and that was on March 29th of 1977.

Q: Do you know anything about what happened to those three men or who might have done them in, Jimmy?

A: Well, on who killed those men, I do not know who the actual man was that killed Johnny Rosselli or Charles Nicoletti but the night that Sam Giancana was killed, I know that Johnny Rosselli was in town that night and I know that him and Sam Giancana was very close and I figure he was probably the only one that could get into his house that time of the morning...that Sam would let him in....but to say he specifically killed him, I can't say that because I don't really know...it was never admitted to me but I know that Johnny left and went back to Miami...but anyway after Sam was dead....Johnny was dead...I didn't know who killed Charles Nicoletti...if I had of known I would have went after them myself so that knowledge never became known to me. Right before Chuck was killed...we knew that there was a problem...and I had been riding constantly with him and staying in his companionship...more or less as his bodyguard...watching...on anyone that we went to meet....I would usually carry two 45s with me....I'd keep a windbraker across my lap with each gun laying in my lap with a hand on each one. We had been very, very careful. Approximately, two weeks before his death, he had given me a package and told me put this away and keep it...someday you might need this...there may be people looking for it....he said do not let this fall into the wrong hands. Well, I took the package ...wrapped it in cheesecloth and put some plastic around it and put it in a little metal box and I went out and I had buried it...put it where no one would find it. I had left it there. After his execution and he was killed....on March 29 of '77...I'm gonna estimate that its probably between a week and a half to two and half weeks right there after...I don't know the exact date....that I was leaving one of our local clubs where we had card games going...and making book and everything...and it was shortly past midnight I guess one o'clock in the morning...as I walked out I was abducted...I was gassed...thrown into a vehicle and taken away....I had been interrogated for roughly...I dunno.... a day, a day and a half, whatever it was....two days even...I'm not even sure how long they had me at that point because when I come out of it, I was in pretty bad shape....but I had went through a very rough interrogation and I knew it wasn't the outfit that did it because if there was any doubt there they would have killed me so I figure that it had to be a government agency that picked me up...and they wanted the notes, and the books and the diary of Charles Nicoletti and I never gave it to them. I was thrown from a car, I was stripped, my legs and hands still bound behind me and I was picked up at one of the suburban towns just west of Chicago⁽⁴⁰⁾ and the police recovered me and took me in and my family was notified and they wanted to take me to the hospital and I didn't want to go to the hospital.....I went home and I had my right hand man come over at that point and stay like at the house with me cause I couldn't even get up and walk to the bathroom...he had to pick me up and carry me anywhere I went...that's how bad a shape I was in....at this point my wife had already thought that I was dead...so had everybody else in town when I had been picked up and carried away that way...as soon as I was able....I got up and made sure I wasn't followed or watched by anyone and I went and I dug the package up....In the package that was there...there was identification for Secret Service in that package...there was his personal diary that he had made a lot of notes on....things...that people had been killed over the years....and there was also the map that Johnny Rosselli and I had received that morning in Ft. Worth from the man that was supposed to be Jack Ruby when we headed over there....and he had gotten that package...that map was there....and I destroyed that at that time because I knew then that somebody was really after it and wanted it.

Q: But you kept Nicoletti's diary?

A: Yes, I've still got that.

Q: Can you tell me anything about its contents at this point?

A: No, I won't get into that because we're getting involved in organized crime and I will not do anything to hurt anybody, anywhere in that branch. This way the only thing I'm saying here is Charles Nicoletti is now dead....so is Johnny Rosselli and Sam Giancana. I can cause them no harm. But I will never, ever put a man in prison. I will not give anyone up right now for my own freedom....And that's how I stand and that is how I will live by it and I will die by that standard.

Q: Jimmy. you've lived around death and crime all your life...how do you feel about death?

A: How do I feel about death? To me....it's just another new adventure....Don't get me wrong, I'm in no hurry to die...when the time comes though...I will accept it. And I've looked at death several times in my life. I've had people from the outfit...the police officers....put guns to my head and threaten to kill me and I've looked them in the eye and told them...shoot...and a couple of them I've told them they didn't have the balls to shoot. A couple of the local cops, they come to my home one night and surrounded my house and took me out...after working me over severely in the front yard...took me down to the railroad tracks before they took me to the station house...took me to the railroad tracks...driven me out of the squad car, handcuffed, put a gun to my head...and told me you piece of shit...we're not taking you in we're gonna kill you and I told them you ain't got the balls to do it.

Q: Obviously they didn't....

A: And they didn't...they took me on in...my wife was waiting at the precinct station...the lawyers were there...and I was released approximately 45 minutes later

Q: Jimmy, is there anything else that you want to say from your heart about what has occurred in your life or particularly about November of 1963...is there anything you want to add or you want to say...personal?

A: No. I've lived a good life...did a lot of things...more then probably any hundred men has.....But I've lived my life and I can't look back and say well I would change this or I would change that because I wouldn't.

Q: When people see this interview on television, what do you think people will think?

A: Most of them...I don't think they'll believe me.

Q: How do we know it's true, Jimmy?

A: There's no way to really prove it except like I say some of the people you have corroborated a lot of the things I've told you...you've had people corroborate it...and everything I've told you so far it's been there and can be backed up and checked in the files from the CIA to the FBI...and I want to clarify one thing.....I've given you nothing on organized crime...on anything they've ever done....and I will never do that....and I am not a member of organized crime....I have never been a member...but I've had a lot of close associates with organized crime.

Q: Where were you born, Jimmy?

A: I was born January, 1942, Alabama....⁽⁴¹⁾

Q: You're a southern boy?

A: Southern boy....but I was taken from there at a very early age and I grew up as a child on the streets of Chicago.....and I love Chicago. I grew up in an all Italian community. When we first moved in, I was the only kid on the block that couldn't speak Italian...everybody spoke Italian...hardly anybody spoke English. But I ran with them....we finally started communicating...I would live in their homes with them eating stuff that I'd never even seen or heard of and they would come to my house and eat things that they'd never heard of...such things as black-eyed peas, cornbread, biscuits, red-eye gravy and things like that....I loved the pizza, I loved the pasta, the meatballs and everything...I thought it was great...so it was something that we shared and we all got along good...in the beginning we didn't get along but...after they beat up a few times and found out that I couldn't be discouraged and I kept running back to them.....we finally got to all be good friends and we grew up together. As a child, as a kid, I don't think I was probably anymore then 10 or 11 years old, I remember on Saturday mornings I would be sitting out in front of the deli and one of the all time gangsters used to come along....Guy Ceronne...great man...come up in this big old black Cadillac....and me and my little Italian friend...we'd be out there...we'd be shining the hubcaps on his car and wiping it down with our big towels and he'd come out and he'd usually throw us a five dollar bill...back then that was a lot of money....and we thought we was really somebody just because we knew those people...and as we grew up then we started getting into more trouble our own self.

Q: Is that how you, more or less, got involved in working with them?

A: That's how more or less people knew that when I got caught I didn't tell on nobody...and I had a good name for being standup around town even early as a kid growing up as a teenager....wild...driving fast cars, riding motorcycles...had my first car when I think I was just turning fourteen.

Q: Did Charles Nicoletti know your background in warfare and in shooting and in murders?

A: Yes, he did. Charles Nicoletti knew of my background...he watched me around town....as time passed by...running around all the cars and stuff....he knew I'd been into the service...he knew I was familiar with weapons...And I came back from Laos, I did 90 days in the hospital being evaluated....and the day I walked out of there I was recruited...by....David Atlee Phillips showed up that day as I walked out of the hospital...my first assignment with the agency was after I had been shooting in Laos and made my mark there...they felt that I could be of use to the agency at that point....and I was training some Cubans at that time...that's when I first got involved with Chianos Bay, the Bay of Pigs....and after all that blew up and went down and everybody got their face dirty and the CIA got dirty in the Bay of Pigs and things...I was home for awhile and I started racing stock cars....Mr. Nicoletti took a shine to me and watched me race cars and he knew I was up and coming and he knew my involvement with weapons but he wasn't concerned about my weapons in the beginning...he was only concerned about with my driving ability. I admired him and to me he walked on water. I gotta tell you I loved the man...he was one of the two greatest men I ever knew.

Q: What kind of guy was he?

A: He was very well spoken, well mannered, quiet, he didn't swear...there was no profanity in the man....I probably only heard him swear maybe twice in my whole life and that was at the FBI when they had us under surveillance at a couple of different times....He was firm, he was very quiet but he was also very deadly...it's like a rattle snake you might say...without the rattlers...you never knew when he was going to strike....

Q: What kind of guy was Rosselli?

A: Rosselli was...he was flashy...did a lot of talking...he talked too much...that used to bother me....but he was one of those guys he liked to flash...he flashed some money.....he dressed nice. Mr. Nicoletti dressed nice also but Mr. Nicoletti did not flash in the same style that Johnny Rosselli did. It was as much difference as night and day. Johnny was loud....boisterous with everything.

Q: What kind of guy was Sam Giancana?

A: Sam Giancana was a wonderful, loveable old man who was quiet...anybody's grandfather.....I mean he was great but boy if you got him riled up....he was like one of those little terrier bulldogs getting hold of you...he could just tear you up....He was good. I respected him a lot and everything else. Sam Giancana, I didn't work for him, he never gave me no orders, never told me to do anything. The only ones I took orders from was from two people....one was Charles Nicoletti...like I say the other man is still alive and I won't identify him.

Q: What kind of guy was David Atlee Phillips?

A: David Atlee Phillips was a cool character...very good natured...I guess I put him through a lot of paces...I couldn't understand his way of thinking in the beginning...but he used to tell me at that time that he could kill more people with a typewriter than I could kill with a machine gun running around trying to shoot everybody in the world. I couldn't believe that...I couldn't understand it. As time went by and me knowing David Phillips...and starting to listen after he grabbed me and shook me around a couple of times...he got me to pay attention to what he was saying and I got to thinking...I realized the man was right...that there is more to things then running around with a gun....there's your psychological warfare...and what you can do with a piece of paper.....writing a newspaper article confusing people in different countries...even here, I mean...it's just....people believe what they read more or less....especially when it comes down to the newspaper....now that they hear it on TV...they really get into it.

Q: What kind of guy was Lee Harvey Oswald?

A: Lee Harvey Oswald...everybody plays him up to be a nut job and everything else but the man was very intelligent...had a very high I.Q. He was very quiet...self centered...Lee Harvey Oswald was not a boaster, he was not a party man...he didn't run around drinking or ""cabareting"" or none of those things....Lee Harvey Oswald led a very close and self secluded life....people lot of times...what they've said about him is totally untrue.

Q: What do you think his part was in that plaza that day, Jimmy?

A: I think his plot was to plant evidence to mislead everybody. I don't believe that Lee Harvey Oswald had any inkling that his life was in any danger whatsoever.

Q: How many shots do you think he fired?

A: Lee Harvey Oswald never fired a shot.⁽⁴²⁾

Q: Somebody had to fire from that 6th floor according to the trajectory. Was there anybody else up there with him or do you know?

A: As far as I know there was nobody up there. I did not even know Lee Harvey Oswald was up there. Now when you're standing at a place like that...it's hard to tell where the noise is coming from...you've got echoes...you've got all these people...your sound is being muffled....but at this point, I don't even know Lee Harvey Oswald is in the Texas Book Depository Building there...I have no even knowledge of that at that point....the last time I saw him was the day before.

Q: How do you know he didn't fire a shot?

A: I just don't believe he would. Lee Harvey Oswald...as much as they proclaimed him to be an assassin and a killer...I don't believe he was....Even in the Marine Corp...he had a small scar up above his lip that he got hit with a rifle stock...he took a small scar in there....Lee Harvey Oswald wasn't the type of person to go running around and kill anybody.

Q: Did you ever notice if he was left handed or right handed?

A: I never paid that much attention to it...he never fired a weapon around me. We never sit down....we never wrote any letters together....when he drove....they say he couldn't drive but Lee Harvey Oswald could drive...he didn't have a driver's license maybe but the man could drive...hell, he drove military trucks even....and let''s face it....anybody working...anybody that has been working at a...one of America's spy bases...especially like in Japan where he was at....there's no way this country is going to give them a visa to go anywhere near Russia...they photograph every man going in and out of the embassy in Mexico...all your embassies are watched....we watch them they watch us....back then...even today...they've never stopped watching each other. Nobody runs into another embassy without being spotted right away. They're under constant surveillance. And if you had a top secret clearance like Lee Harvey Oswald did, you just don't jump on a plane and fly off to a foreign country especially to a communist country unless somebody engineered it and set it up for you to go to give disinformation. Why Lee Harvey Oswald went to Russia, I'll never know and personally I never asked him when I knew him. They used to have an old saying curiosity killed the cat. All my life, I've never been curious. I've never asked people who they're dealing with or what they've done.

Q: What do you feel about your place in history?

A: I don't even want to be remembered in history.

Q: Why?

A: For what? I'm nobody. I'm nobody special...

Q: You're the man that killed John F. Kennedy....

A: Not necessarily...I hit him in the front...he was shot in the back also...I was just one of the two men....But other figures have been killed.....other political people in other countries have been killed....we've had gangsters killed here in this country...I never chose the people to be killed. Somebody else selected John F. Kennedy to be killed. Whether its a politician to be killed or whether it was a mob figure to be killed...I never chose the figures....somebody else said they was wrong said they did wrong....just followed the orders....to me.... it was like taking out the garbage.

Q: Did you think or have you ever thought about the fact that if you hadn't of fired that shot that Oswald may still be alive or Tippit, or does that matter to you

A: That doesn't matter to me....but I've...as far as that goes...If I hadn't of fired the shot...Kennedy would have been killed anyway....because the last shot from Nicoletti caught him in basically the left side of the skull from the back that pushed the head forward...so basically speaking he would have been killed either way...but I had waited until the last point for fields of fire for me before Jackie Kennedy would become in the line of fire....if I don't take it at this point I'm losing my last chance for field of fire...then I don't fire at all...and then if Nicoletti hadn't of fired and neither one of us fired.... he might have lived...then the job wouldn't have been done.

Q: Can you show me exactly using your finger where your shot hit President Kennedy?

A: Looking at the man would be to his left side for me but if you're sitting in his position then it would be on his right side....and it would have came in through on his head...it would have came in here (touches his right front temple right behind eye) and exited out the back side. And I would measure at that point that 60% of the skull in the back of his head had left upon the impact.⁽⁴⁴⁾

Q: How can you measure that?

A: Well, if you've shot several people in the head....and I was known for head shots....not just on that...but I'm talking about prior to that and in the service....on things I have done....after while you get to know when the back of a skull is gone and approximately how much is missing.

Q: Jimmy, in all your years in the service and all the activities.....

A: My military service wasn't entirely that long but my involvement with government agencies became over extended after a while.

Q: In all of your years in organized crime in participating and around guns, death etc., do you have any idea of how many you have killed?

A: Yes, but I will not say. That has no bearing on it. The only party that we are discussing about death basically at this point is John F. Kennedy. The other people have no bearing on this case and I don't even wish to discuss that.

Q: I'm sorry I asked that....I just.....

A: Like I say...I don't even want to quote that figure. I only have one person to judge me and that's when I die.

Q: Do you believe in God, Jim?

A: Well, whether I say I believe or not, I don't know... I guess I do in a way because every time I've been in trouble, I've looked down and I've said Oh, God help me to get out of this or help me to get this done....so basically...I've caught myself praying to God on several occasions when I needed him. But like I say...I believe there's more to life than just here....I'm not saying I believe in heaven and hell, I'm just saying I believe there's another level of plane for us that we're going to all have to surface on someday.

Q: You told me one time on the phone that the two greatest lies in the world were religion and history...

A: Yep.

Q: Do you want to elaborate on that a second?

A: Well, history has been changed to fornicate to the way that the people have....how do you put it....if you look back and you investigate a lot of our history...you go into find that a lot of our great causes was instigated by the US itself and we covered it up and made it look like we were being infringed upon by our rights on humanitarian purposes and freedom and democracy...and so when you wave that banner...and all my life I've believed in mother, apple pie, the American way of life and freedom and democracy...but things over the years especially in the early 70s started changing my way of thinking a lot on things... because I seen how people were being abused and mistreated and being assassinated only because they knew something....not because they had the wrong politics...that they were trying to endanger this country....Religion has killed more people than all the wars we've ever had....people die every day in the name of religion...they started out that way in the beginning and nothing's ever changed...everybody wants to say that one person's religion is better than the other one...the Irish fighting each other over there and the Moslems, the Serbs, the Croations you name it...there's always somebody wanting to kill somebody over their religion....over their God...yet they say there's only one God. I don't want to elaborate on the Bible or get into it because that only creates too many other things going and that leads from one product to another product. But I try to stay away from religion and I try to stay away from history as much as possible....the only interest to me of history is if I was going into another country or if I was going to do something...I want to read about them and know about their culture and I want to know what their beliefs were...and I wasn't interested in the beginning of their time...I only wanted to know about the last 10-15-20 years of how their government had been run and what their politics were....that's all I was interested in....and what religion was the strongest religion in that country and how I could deal with that situation...because I could learn more from knowing that country from what everybody thought about it...

Q: Jimmy, if today was November 22, 1963 and you were standing in Dealey Plaza right now, would you kill the President again?

A: If I was under orders or if I had been asked to assist, I would do exactly what I always did....I would follow orders...I never disobeyed an order. As far as John F. Kennedy goes...the President...even though he was the President.....today everybody tells us what a great man he was....back then, and I was there and I was seeing the things that was happening from the Cuban missile crisis to everything else...nobody really liked Kennedy back then that I could find...everybody I talked to didn't like him....like I say I had my own personal reasons for the Bay of Pigs...but yet other people....in the military to the secret service to the FBI...to everybody.....even the people around him...even his own staff...because he was....like I say...I won't get into all his bad habits but as far as I know nobody liked the man yet today they tell us what a great man he was but that's only history and only because he was President of the United States. And nobody likes to admit that we made a mistake....

Q: Did you or any of your friends, Nicoletti or Rosselli or anyone know about Marilyn Monroe and John Kennedy?

A: I don't know if they knew or not....I never asked....and again as far as other people involved such as Marilyn Monroe and all those other stories that people have told...when we sit around or when we went somewhere once Mr. Nicoletti and I had done something....that was history...that was yesterday...we never talked about it thereafter....it was never brought up again....that was how he wanted it...with his training...his beliefs.....like I say...I wanted to follow in his foot steps because I believe in this man so much...I worshipped this man....at that time...you talk about God...he was my God back then....he walked on water.

Q: Did Mr. Nicoletti work for the mob and the CIA too on different occasions?

A: Mr. Nicoletti was strictly organized crime. As far as the CIA goes, Johnny Rosselli was the liaison between the mob and the CIA and Nicoletti had talked with them a few times but this is what got Nicoletti killed I believe....was the involvement when he started talking with the CIA or the secret service or whoever had talked to him and he was being called back....because i think they killed him the day before he was to appear at the new intelligence committee hearing or whatever it was they had going....because somebody was afraid he was going to talk...and it broke my heart afterwards when somebody told me that Mr. Nicoletti had talked and that he was dirty because I found that hard to believe....and I always felt that if Mr. Nicoletti was dirty and that he had been giving people up...I felt he would have given the diary up...he could have made a deal for his own life and for security and protection but he didn't...he died...we knew that he was in great trouble at the time...I didn't really understand the depth of it because I did not believe that he would give anybody up....now I don't know who killed Mr. Nicoletti...I don't know whether the organized crime family did it or I don't know whether the government killed him...I have no knowledge of who killed him...like I say...if I had known...believe me...I would have been hunting them down and I would have died trying to get the people that got Mr. Nicoletti.

Q: So the US government will kill people?

A: Definitely...the US government will kill people....that's definite, there's no problems there.....there's no questions...he's not the only one they've killed...but like I say...if they killed Nicoletti I don't know for sure...I don't know who killed him....but if I did know, I would have put an all out effort and there's only one thing in my life I have ever feared and that was failure to complete an operation that I had started on...and like I say...when I say I loved Mr. Nicoletti...not as a man and a woman...I loved him as a protege, as a father as a brother or whatever...like I say...he was my God...he walked on water.

Q: When you were walking out of Dealey Plaza from behind that fence, did anybody try to stop you or anybody ask you anything did anybody see your gun, did anybody say anything to you?

A: As I was leaving Dealey Plaza nobody tried to stop me...there was two police officers within probably twenty - twenty-five feet of me that had been stopped by somebody posing as secret service agents...I could hear part of the conversation...I did not look back over my shoulder...I did not run...I did not stand around...I just carried a natural gait and proceeded to exit....just like a business man walking away from lunch.

Bibliography

1. Jacob Cohen, "Yes, Oswald Alone Killed Kennedy," Commentary, June 1992, pp. 32-40.

2. Robert Groden and Harrison Edward Livingstone, High Treason: The Assassination of President Kennedy and the New Evidence of Conspiracy, Berkley Edition, New York: Berkley Books, 1990.

3. Jim Moore, Conspiracy of One, Ft. Worth: The Summit Group, 1991.

4. Mark Lane, Rush to Judgment, Thunder's Mouth Press Edition, New York: Thunder's Mouth Press, 1992.

5. Jim Marrs, Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy, New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 1989.

6. Gerald Posner, Case Closed: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK, New York: Random House, 1993.

7. Carl Oglesby, The JFK Assassination: The Facts and the Theories, New York: Signet, 1992.

8. Bonar Menninger, Mortal Error: The Shot That Killed JFK, New York: St. Martin's Press, 1992.

9. James DiEugenio, Destiny Betrayed: JFK, Cuba, and the Garrison Case, New York: Sheridan Square Press, Inc., 1992.

10. Harrison Edward Livingstone, High Treason 2, New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 1992.

11. Dick Russell, The Man Who Knew Too Much, New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 1992.

12. G. Robert Blakey and Richard Billings, Fatal Hour: The Assassination Of President Kennedy by Organized Crime, Berkley Books Edition, New York: Berkley Books, 1992. Although Blakey and Billings do posit a conspiracy in the assassination, they also provide a lot of misinformation, and they support a number of the WC's claims.

13. J. Gary Shaw, "Posner's Single Bullet Theory or How to Ignore the Facts When You Really Try," Dateline: Dallas, Special Edition, November 22, 1993, pp. 15-19.

14. Anthony Summers, Conspiracy: The Definitive Book on the JFK Assassination, Updated and Expanded Edition, New York: Paragon House, 1989.

15. Matthew Smith, JFK: The Second Plot, Edinburgh, England: Mainstream Publishing Ltd, 1992.

16. Alan J. Weberman and Michael Canfield. Coup D' Etat in America: The CIA and the Assassination of John F. Kennedy, Revised Edition, San Francisco, California: Quick American Archives, 1992.

17. Sylvia Meagher, Accessories After the Fact: The Warren Commission, the Authorities, and the Report, New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1967; Vintage Press, 1976.

18. David S. Lifton, Best Evidence, Carroll & Graf Edition, New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 1988.

19. Jim Garrison, On the Trail of the Assassins, Warner Books Edition, New York: Warner Books, Inc., 1988.

20. Roger Craig, When They Kill A President, Dallas, Texas: JFK Assassination Information Center, 1971, reprint.

21. Craig Zirbel, The Texas Connection, New York: Warner Books, 1992.

22. Larry Ray Harris, "November 22, 1963: The Other Murder," Dateline: Dallas, Special Edition, November 22, 1993, pp. 31-34.

23. Bill Sloan, with Jean Hill, JFK: The Last Dissenting Witness, Gretna, Louisiana: Pelican Publishing Company, 1992.

24. Tip O'Neill, with William Novak, Man Of The House: The Life and Political Memoirs of Speaker Tip O'Neill, New York: St. Martin's Press, 1987.

25. David S. Scheim, The Mafia Killed President Kennedy, London, England: Virgin Publishing Ltd, 1992. First published under the title Contract on America: The Mafia Murder of President John F. Kennedy, New York: Shapolsky Publishers, 1988. The retitled 1992 edition is a revised and updated version of the 1988 original.

26. Carl Oglesby, Who Killed JFK?, Berkeley, California: Odonian Press, 1982.

27. Christopher Scally, "So Near . . . And Yet So Far": The House Select Committee on Assassinations' Investigation into the Murder of President John F. Kennedy, Dallas, Texas: JFK Assassination Information Center, April, 1980.

28. John Davis, Mafia Kingfish: Carlos Marcello and the Assassination of John F. Kennedy, Signet Edition, New York: Signet, 1989.

29. W. Anthony Marsh, "The Ramsey Report," Dateline: Dallas, volume 1, numbers 2 and 3, Summer/Fall 1992, pp. 14-16.

30. Letter to the editor, Dateline: Dallas, volume 1, numbers 2 and 3, Summer/Fall 1992. 6.

31. Joseph Forbes, Letter to the editor, Commentary, November 1992, pp. 15, 17.

32. Jay David, editor, The Weight of the Evidence: The Warren Report and Its Critics, New York: Meredith Press, 1968.

33. Charles Crenshaw, M.D., JFK: Conspiracy of Silence, New York: Signet, 1992.

34. Dennis L Breo, "JFK's Death: The Plain Truth From the MDs Who Did the Autopsy," Journal of the American Medical Association, Volume 267, May 27, pp. 2794-2803.

35. Harrison Edward Livingstone, "JAMA Article: A Travesty!," Dateline: Dallas, volume 1, numbers 2 and 3, Summer/Fall 1992, pp. 1, 29-35.

36. Victor Marchetti and John D. Marks, The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1974.

37. Douglas Valentine, The Phoenix Program, New York: Avon Books, 1990. A disturbing history of a CIA covert action program in which thousands of Vietnamese civilians were killed, tortured, and imprisoned, all without even the semblance of due process of law.

38. Brian Freemantle, CIA, New York: Stein and Day, 1983.

39. Jonathan Vankin, Conspiracies, Cover-ups and Crimes, New York: Dell Publishing, 1992.

40. Leslie Cockburn, Out of Control, London: Bloomsbury Publishing LTD, 1987.

41. James DiEugenio, "Posner in New Orleans: Gerry in Wonderland," Dateline: Dallas, Special Edition, November 22, 1993, pp. 19-22. An excellent response to many of Posner's criticisms of Jim Garrison.

42. John M. Newman, JFK and Vietnam: Deception, Intrigue, and the Struggle for Power, New York: Warner Books, 1992.

43. Mark Lane, Plausible Denial: Was the CIA Involved in the Assassination of JFK, New York: Thunder's Mouth Press, 1991.

44. Thomas C. Reeves, A Question of Character: A Life of John F. Kennedy, New York: The Free Press, 1991.

45. Haynes Johnson, The Bay of Pigs: The Leaders' Story of Brigade 2506, New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1964.

46. Ted C. Sorenson, Kennedy, New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1965.

47. Mario Lazo, Dagger in the Heart: American Policy Failures in Cuba, New York: Funk & Wagnells, 1968.

48. Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1965.

49. William Manchester, One Brief Shining Moment, Boston, Massachusetts: Little, Brown and Company, 1983.

50. John F. Kennedy, The Burden and the Glory: The Hopes and Purposes of President Kennedy's Second and Third Years in Office As Revealed in His Public Statements and Addresses, edited by Allan Nevins, New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1964.

51. Edward J. Feulner, "Reading His Lips: How to Tell if Clinton Really Is a New Democrat," Policy Review, Winter 1993, pp. 4-8.

52. Jack Kemp, An American Renaissance: A Strategy for the 1980's, Falls Church, Virginia: Conservative Press, Inc., 1979.

53. Alicia Esslinger, "Assassination of One," Dateline: Dallas, volume 1, numbers 2 and 3, Summer/Fall 1992, pp. 24-25.

54. Daniel Oliver, "A 'Soak the Rich' Policy Is Just Bad Economics," Human Events, April 10, 1993, p. 11.

55. J. Gary Shaw, "'Case Closed' or Posner's Pompous and Presumptious Postulations," Dateline: Dallas, November 22, 1993, pp. 10-14.

56. Mark North, Act of Treason: The Role of J. Edgar Hoover in the Assassination of President Kennedy, New York: Carroll & Graf, 1991.

57. Anthony Frewin, Late-Breaking News on Clay Shaw's United Kingdom Contacts, Research Transcript, Dallas, Texas: JFK Assassination Information Center, 1992.

58. Jacob Cohen, Letter to the editor, Commentary, November 1992, pp. 18-21.

59. Josiah Thompson, Six Seconds in Dallas, New York: Bernard Geis Associates, 1967.

60. Michael Kurtz, Crime of the Century, Knoxville, Tennessee: University of Tennessee Press, 1982.

61. Gaeton Fonzi, The Last Investigation, New York: Thunder's Mouth Press, 1993.

62. W. Anthony Marsh, "Circumstantial Evidence of a Head Shot from the Grassy Knoll," June 1993. This paper was delivered at the Third Decade conference held on June 18-20, 1993, and was later posted on CompuServe's JFK Assassination Forum. It is now available in the JFK Debate Library in CompuServe's Politics Forum.

63. Harrison Edward Livingstone, Killing the Truth: Deceit and Deception in the JFK Case, New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 1993.

64. Anthony Summers, Official and Confidential: The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover, London: Victor Gollancz, 1993.

65. Linda Hunt, Secret Agenda: The United States Government, Nazi Scientists, and Project Paperclip, 1945-1990, New York: St. Martin's Press, 1991.

66. Wallace Milam, "Blakey's 'Linchpin': Dr. Guinn, Neutron Activation Analysis, and the Single-Bullet Theory," Unpublished paper, 1993, copy in my possession.

67. William Manchester, The Death of a President, New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1967.

68 Robert J. Groden, The Killing of a President: The Complete Photographic Record of the JFK Assassination, the Conspiracy, and the Cover-Up, New York: Viking Studio Books, 1993.

69. Walt Brown, "November 22, 1963: Origin of Media Apathy," Dateline: Dallas, April 12, 1994, p. 19.

70. Herbert S. Parmet, JFK: The Presidency of John F. Kennedy, New York: Penguin Books, 1984.

71. Henry Hurt, Reasonable Doubt: An Investigation Into the Assassination of John F. Kennedy, New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1985.

72. Walt Brown, The People v. Lee Harvey Oswald, New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 1993.

73. Gerald Ford, with John Stiles, Portrait of the Assassin, New York: Simon and Shuster, 1965.

74. Gary Mack, "Review of Case Closed," CompuServe JFK Assassination Forum file, downloaded on 28 August 1993.

75. Cyril Wecht, with Mark Curriden and Benjamin Wecht, Cause of Death, New York: Dutton, 1993.

76. Harold Weisberg, Selections from WHITEWASH, New York, Carroll & Graf Publishers, 1994.

77. Paul Eddy, Hugo Sabogal, and Sara Walden, The Cocaine Wars, New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1988.

78. John Prados, Presidents' Secret Wars: CIA and Pentagon Covert Operations Since World War II, New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1986.

79. Alfred McCoy, with Cathleen Read and Leonard Adams, The Politics of Herion in Southeast Asia, New York: Harper & Row, 1972.

80. Craig Roberts, Kill Zone: A Sniper Looks at Dealey Plaza, Tulsa, Oklahoma: Consolidated Press International, 1994.

81. Connie Kritzberg, Secrets from the Sixth Floor Window, Tulsa, Oklahoma: Under Cover Press, 1994.

82. Stuart Kind and Michael Overman, Science Against Crime, London: Aldus Books, 1972.

83. Raymond Marcus, The HSCA, the Zapruder Film, and the Single-Bullet Theory, 1992.

84. Harold Weisberg, Never Again: The Government Conspiracy in the JFK Assassination, New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers/Richard Gallen, 1995.

85. Raymond Marcus, The Bastard Bullet: A Search for Legitimacy for Commission Exhibit 399, 1966.

86. Harold Weisberg, Whitewash II: The FBI-Secret Service Cover-Up, New York: Dell Publishing, 1967.

87 Richard Trask, Pictures of the Pain: Photography and the Assassination of President Kennedy, Danvers, Massachusetts: Yeoman Press, 1994.

APPENDIX A

On January 30, 1995, I interviewed James E. Files in person at Joliet, Illinois - for the fifth time in two years.

In an effort to take Mr. Files to a higher level of investigation in our quest for the truth regarding his knowledge and participation in the assassination of John F. Kennedy, I prepared 17 questions for Mr. Files.

My questions were based on points that remained unanswered by Mr. Files after our extensive research into letters, interviews, phone logs, and phone conversations with Files conducted by the late Joe West, Barry Adelman of dick clark productions, and me since August 17, 1992 and the discovery of Mr. Files by the late Joe West. I also received input on the preparation of these questions from John R. Stockwell, J. Gary Shaw, Frank Weimann, Gary Patrick Hemming, Tosh Plumlee, Peter Dale Scott, Fletcher Prouty and Josiah Thompson.

The questions (in regular type) and Mr. Files' answers and comments (in italics and quotation marks) appear below, verbatim, and are transcribed from my handwritten notes taken during the interview.

1- Jimmy, let me ask you about the "special rounds" that you used in Dallas on November 22, 1963. Did you start with hollow points or were they drilled from a solid bullet? Please describe the method used.

"Wolfman made the rounds. He is dead now. He died after Joe West asked me to bring forth a witness to corroborate my story. He drilled the rounds out of solid bullets. The top was then sealed with wax. I was not present when he made the rounds but I know they were filled with mercury.."

Do you know how Wolfman died, his cause of death?

"No. He died less than a week after I told him I was talking with Joe. I asked him to talk with Joe."

2- You said earlier that "it looked like old home week" in Dallas on November 22, 1963. Were any of the following people there?

Homer Eschiverra, I don't know if that name is spelled right or pronounced correctly...

"No."

Aldo Vera Seraphine, also known as Aldo Vera?

"That is a Cuban name....it's difficult for me to talk about people that were there that are still alive..."

Jimmy, these questions are important for our final research while I'm preparing the final script for the TV program, please tell me the truth, I've shot straight with you, you've shot straight with me, I have to know the answers to these questions....Aldo Vera Seraphine...Did you see him there that day in the Plaza?

"Yes, I think he was there."

Lenny Patrick?

"No."

Richard Cain?

"Yes."

Milwaukee Phil Alderisio?

"Some of these people are still alive....yes, he was there."

Antonio Veciana?

"Yes, he was there but he had nothing to do with the assassination of John F. Kennedy. A lot of people were aware he was going to be hit...a lot of people knew..."

Edward Lansdale...of the CIA...?

"No, I didn't see him there."

Charles Harrelson?

"No."

Chauncey Holt?

"Who?"

Chauncey Holt. He says he drove Charles Nicoletti into Dallas during the early morning of 11/22/63. He also says he was one of the infamous "3 tramps."

"No, I don't know him."

Thomas Eli Davis?

"No."

Orlando Bosch?

"He is still alive, I can't talk about anyone who is still alive..."

"Jimmy, I must have these questions answered for my personal research. Please tell me the truth. It is very important. Was Orlando Bosch there?

"Yes."

Herminio Diaz?

"What was the first name?"

Herminio....

"There was a Diaz there. Could his first name have been Tony?"

I don't know. All I have is Herminio.

"Yes, there was a Diaz there."

"Bob, I told you earlier about seeing Eugene Brading there..."

Yes...

"Did I tell you what his purpose for being there was...?"

No.

"Brading had the contact that got Nicoletti and Rosselli into the Dal-Tex building..."

Do you know the name of that contact?

"No."

"Bob, did I ever tell you why Chuckie put me behind the fence at the last moment..?"

No, why?

"Johnny Rosselli was scared to be a shooter....he was to be a shooter...he was scared...he stayed on the second floor of the Dal-Tex...behind Nicoletti....he didn't shoot....the CIA had called the hit stopped.....Nicoletti said 'Fuck'em..we go'...I hardly ever heard Mr. Nicoletti cuss but he said 'Fuck'em' that day..."

Jimmy, that may explain why the CIA pilot, Tosh Plumlee. told me he was under the impression that their reason for flying in was to abort the hit on the president...and Rosselli flew in on that CIA supported plane...

"He (Rosselli) got there right on time, too."

Yeah.

"Did the CIA pilot ever admit that his name was Pearson?"

Yes, Jimmy. I knew that his name was Pearson when you identified him. He had already told me that his name was Pearson. That's when I first knew you were telling us the truth about picking up Rosselli.

3- Did Nicoletti ever mention anything to you about the Grace Ranch in Arizona? Do you know about the Grace Ranch? Have you ever been there?

"Yes, I knew about the Grace Ranch but I never went there...wasn't that owned by James Licavoli's brother, Peter, the mob guy from Cleveland?"

Yes.

4- Did you ever meet J.D.Tippit, the Dallas police officer?

"No."

Did you know he (Tippit) first tried to join the 82nd Airborne but he was transferred to the 17th Division?

"No."

5- (I placed the picture of Jimmy at age 21 with a man in sunglasses on the table face up) Jimmy, you told me that this man with you was the man that killed J.D. Tippit. What is his name?

"I can't tell you that. You know that. You've asked me that before..."

He's still alive?

"Yes, he's still alive as of three or four years ago..."

6- The "solo" picture of you - at 21 - without your shirt on - where and when was that taken?

"It was taken by Lee Harvey Oswald at the hotel room in Mesquite in 1963."

How did you get the negative?

"I took the whole roll of film."

7- Who sent Oswald to meet you at the motel room in Dallas?

"David Atlee Phillips."

How do you know that?

"I only called two people when I got to Dallas. I had left Chicago the week before...the next day after I got there, I called Mr. Nicoletti and let him know where I was and I called David Atlee Phillips and told him I was in Dallas and where I was...the next day, Oswald showed up to take me around and show me the exit routes. I also went with him to test fire the weapons and aligned the scopes. Mr. Nicoletti did not know Lee Harvey Oswald. It could only have been David Atlee Phillips that sent Oswald to help me. He was Oswald's CIA controller and my controller, too."

8- Did Nicoletti tell you either before or after the assassination that he was headed to New Orleans after the hit?

"No. I dropped him and Rosselli off at the car they had waiting and I don't know where they went...I didn't see Mr. Nicoletti until a week or two later when he paid me. The only thing he ever said to me after the assassination....we never talked about a job after it was over...was when I turned right out of the Dal-Tex parking lot...leaving the area...he asked me 'Don't you think that you overreacted by firing the shot when you did?'...I told him that was my only chance to fire or Jackie Kennedy would have been in my field of fire..."

9- Do you know Sgt. Gary Patrick Hemming and from where?

"I worked under him down in Florida...No Name Key...you know I told you about that place...Assassin's Ridge...in the Everglades..."

Sgt. Hemming said he remembered you as being a "young hitter from Chicago that got into trouble down in Mexico and that Frank Sturgis of the CIA had to go down and bail you out" of trouble...

"Yeah, and I'll tell you one thing....he didn't just bail me out of jail...he didn't pay any money......if you know what I mean..."

10- What other aliases would you have used that would have the same initials...J.F.? You've already told me that you used John Felter or something like that...were there any more J.F. initials that you used?

"I don't recall. I used so many names. To one person I was Jimmy..to another Sam...to another Ted...I made up so many names I got confused sometimes..."

11- Did you know David Ferrie personally? Where did you meet him?

"Yes, I knew him but I wouldn't say he was my friend or anything like that. I met him in Louisiana and again in Florida."

In Louisiana...in Clinton...around Lake Ponchartrain?

"Yes."

Did you ever see a white haired man with him?

"No."

The man's name would have been Clay Shaw or Bertrand...

"No."

12- Did you know Antoinette Giancana was having an affair with Chuck Nicoletti?

"No. He wasn't the only one she was fucking...."

I imagine Sam wasn't too happy about the guys that messed with her..

"No, most died...he didn't mess with Mr. Nicoletti..."

Because he was Sam's right hand man...?

"Yes, he and Sam were close to each other. Chuckie and I used to go up to a pastry shop every Sunday morning and sometimes on Saturday and take pastries to the old man. He loved Mr. Nicoletti."

13- Where was your court martial hearing held?

"Ft. Mead."

You said that your JAG officer was named Howell. Do you recall the JAG officer's rank?

"It was either Howell or Powell. It's been so long ago. I think he was a major..."

14- Do you recall the license plate number of Nicoletti's '63 Chevy?

"No."

15- Did you ever meet or know Loran Hall?

"No."

Kerry Thornley?

"No."

James Jesus Angleton?

"I knew who he was but I never took any orders from him or did any work for him. I know he was respected by the Agency."

Sylvia Odio?

"No."

16- Did you ever drop Charles Nicoletti off at an airport to catch a private or a CIA flight to California or to Nevada?

"Yes, at a small airport named Pawokee up 45 in Chicagoland and at Half Day, Illinois around Palantine Heights."

17- Did David Atlee Phillips ever use any other CIA codename other than Bishop?

"Yes, but I can't recall what it was...He used several..."

APPENDIX B

The investigation into the confession of James E. Files started on August 17, 1992 and is ongoing.

Since that date, hospital records, traffic court records, jail records, court records, newspapers, U.S. Government files and records have been searched and examined. Hundreds of personal interviews have been conducted.

There is no credible evidence that indicates that James E. Files was not in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963.

Several incidents have occurred:

1. A known Mafia lawyer from Chicago - Julius Echeles - was hired to represent James E. Files. Echeles received payment in the form of a cashier's check with a notation "From the Friends of James E. Files." Efforts to ascertain who issued the payments to attorney Echeles have been fruitless.

2. In late May of 1994, Files's lawyer and Files's first wife (and possibly Files's oldest daughter) conspired to create a false story in an effort to derail the investigative efforts of Robert G. Vernon and stop the publication of Files's confession on television. The false story was that Files had a twin brother and that Files allegedly told his first wife that the twin brother was with her during the week of November 22, 1963 and that Files was really in Dallas. Prior to the twin brother story, Vernon had promised Mr. Files that Files's family would not be bothered or questioned about Files's confession or his history. Due to the twin brother story, Vernon contacted Files's family members in Alabama, Illinois and Tennessee. Vernon spoke with Files's aunt - Christine. Files was born in her home in Alabama on January 24, 1942. She verified that Files did not have a twin brother. Vernon confronted Files's oldest daughter with the twin brother story. The daughter said that all she asked was that we leave her father alone for he is all she has. Vernon talked to Ray Files - a step-brother. Ray was aware that James had "fallen in with the wrong crowd." Ray, a minister, also verified that James did not have a twin brother. When confronted with the results of Vernon's investigation into his family and the twin brother story, James E. Files admitted that the twin brother story was concocted by Echeles and his first wife in an effort to derail Vernon's investigation and television program. Files said his first wife was only "doing what she has been told to do."

Files also informed Vernon that he had called his wife and told her to tell the truth to the Grand Jury for he did not want her to perjure herself and face jail.

3. In the summer of 1993, Vernon contacted an Arizona lawyer and told the lawyer that the man who confessed that he fired the fatal last shot into the right front temple of JFK has been located. File's name and location were not supplied to the lawyer. Approximately six weeks later, Vernon and attorney Don Ervin of Houston received a letter from James Files which stated that the Arizona lawyer had contacted the mob and that the mob had sent a visitor to see Files in prison. The purpose of the visit was that the mob was "surprised" that Files was talking. Files was told: "lay down beside your doggy bowl and go to sleep." In late 1994, Vernon learned that the Arizona lawyer had been hired by the Chicago mob and sent to the Joliet prison to visit Files. The Arizona lawyer questioned Files in depth, supposedly to "verify" his confession on behalf of the mob. It is not known what the lawyer reported to the person(s) who hired him.

4. On May 3, 1993, during Vernon's first visit with Files, Files told Vernon that the CIA was desperately trying to erase all records on Files. A search for Files's birth certificate was negative. There is no trace of a birth certificate on Files or Sutton. Files's aunt told Vernon that Files has had a great degree of difficulty locating any of his past records. Files's aunt also informed Vernon that an Alabama lawyer had found James's birth certificate many years ago. According to the aunt, the birth certificate said "deceased at birth." As of this writing, the birth certificate has not been located despite the efforts of Vernon, Kroll Associates and two investigative journalists. The FBI and CIA have refused to release any records pertaining to Files unless Files gives his notarized permission for them to do so. Attorney Julius Echeles has instructed James Files not to give the notarized permission despite numerous requests by Vernon for Files to do so.

5. On October 11, 1995, Files informed Vernon, via phone, that the United States Marshall's office had placed a "hold" on him and that he may be transferred to the Federal maximum security prison in Golden, Colorado. Mr. Files is incarcerated under Illinois law in a state prison under state jurisdiction.

There is no known reasonable explanation why the Federal authorities would want to "hold" Files and transfer him to a Federal prison other than the fact that Files would be placed on maximum security lockdown 23 hours a day in the Colorado facility with no visitors allowed. At Golden, Files would not be allowed to make any collect phone calls or to send or receive any un-monitored mail.

6. On October 14, 1995, Vernon received a phone call from former CIA/DEA pilot Robert "Tosh" Plumlee. Vernon was able to tape record portions of Plumlee's call for the record. Plumlee told Vernon that he was "pulling no fucking punches..." Plumlee said "I'm getting all kinds of stuff from all kinds of places....IRS....everybody..." Plumlee said that in 1990 (two years before investigator Joe West first located Plumlee) that he and "author Jim Marrs ("CROSSFIRE"), Peter Lemkin and former CIA - Army Intelligence officer Bradley Ayers had a meeting in Solano Beach, California." During the course of the conversation they spoke about the "Mafia infiltration into the JMWAVE headquarters in Miami." Plumlee and Ayers recalled a "kid from Chicago who got into trouble down in Mexico" and that he was involved with the "boat people" and the "raider ship Rex." Plumlee also said they talked about Louisiana and the Hotel Dixie, Morgan City and Lamar (spelling?) Ranch and that the "kid from Chicago" was involved in those operations. Plumlee said that "the meeting was taped" and that Vernon should talk to Peter Lemkin or Jim Marrs about listening to the tape. Plumlee gave Vernon a contact fax number on Lemkin. Plumlee knew that the FBI is trying to discredit Files and that they "passed fake FBI names to him (Files). Plumlee said he has spoken to the FBI and that he is aware of from where the information came on Files. Plumlee told Vernon that the information the FBI had originally received on Files came from a CIA operative that was "in Louisiana" and "around the Hotel Dixie." Plumlee stated that he "thinks the operative's name was Reinaldo" and that Files "came (to Louisiana) on some gun running shit and that's how he (Files) got tied into JMWAVE." Plumlee said "I have told the truth about all of my operations with the U.S. Government to Congress and to the President of the United States and his alphabet people...the IRS, FBI, DEA, NSC, (etc)" and that "it has cost me dearly." Plumlee said that the truth was finally coming out soon about the Thunderbird Inn in Las Vegas and the Grace Ranch and the McCord Ranch. Plumlee expressed his dismay with people who are "supposed to be researchers" and that they should "get off their ass and quit playing in the middle line....go for the truth and quit setting on the middle of the fence trying to please everybody."

7. On October 18, 1995, Vernon spoke with Tosh Plumlee and with JFK researcher Peter Dale Scott (Professor of English at the University of California) and Jim Marrs - in separate phone discussions. Plumlee stated that the last name of the man he calls "Reinaldo" could have been Martinez but he was not sure and again spoke of "raider ship Rex." Plumlee again stated that this man was the source of information to the FBI on the "prisoner" (James E. Files). According to Plumlee, "Reinaldo" was a CIA operative and involved in "Operation 40" which he described as a "counter-intelligence" operation.

Professor Scott verified that a "Rolando Martinez" was the Captain of the raider ship "Rex" and that Operation 40 was indeed a CIA counter-intelligence operation. Professor Scott informed Vernon that Operation 40 consisted of men who went ashore with the anti-Cuban forces and that they're job was to "take out" the men who gave them problems or could not be trusted. Let it be noted that Files has stated that he was court martialed for taking out "two of his own men" to "save face with the Laotian Army" after which he was "recruited by David Atlee Phillips" for work in the CIA, training anti-Cuban forces. Files is also on the record as saying his government service became "over-extended."

Jim Marrs stated that there were two men named "Reinaldo" involved in the Bay of Pigs, CIA covert operations. One man was Reinaldo Pico, who was a Bay of Pigs "soldier" and a CIA employee, and the other was Reinaldo Gonzales, who was a Cuban banker and avid Anti-Cuban operative who also worked with the CIA covert operatives. Both "Reinaldos" had contact with the JMWAVE operation and anti-Cuban - raider ship Rex - Operation 40 forces.

On October 19, 1995, Vernon spoke again with Professor Peter Dale Scott. Professor Scott informed Vernon that Reinaldo Pico was indeed involved in the Bay of Pigs, was a CIA employee, and was one of the infamous "Watergate Burglars" in association with Frank Sturgis, E. Howard Hunt and others. Professor Scott also informed Vernon that Pico was a former Narcotics Detective who only "made the busts he was told to do by the Mafia." Professor Scott believes Reinaldo was associated with JURE. Scott also informed Vernon that Reinaldo Gonzales was also not only a Cuban banker and anti-Castro supporter, but he was also involved in a 1962 assassination plot to kill Fidel Castro and referred Vernon to the October 29, 1962 issue of U.S. News and World Report.

Our conclusion is FBI agent Zack Shelton - when he informed investigator West about James E. Files and that the FBI had "run and informant in on Files years ago and that the FBI felt that Files knew something about the events in Dallas in 1963" - that agent Shelton was acting on the informant identified by CIA pilot Plumlee as "Reinaldo" and that informant was Reinaldo Pico. We are continuing our investigation on this matter.

Master researcher Michael T. Griffith of the United States Department of Defense has written one of the most compelling manuscripts on the JFK assassination evidence entitled "MORE THAN A REASONABLE DOUBT." The preface of his manuscript follows as an appropriate closing note for this report:

In September 1964, the Warren Commission released its report on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The Commission had been tasked by President Lyndon Johnson to investigate the tragic shooting. The Commission's report was met by nearly universal praise and acceptance. Its primary conclusions were that a lone gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald, shot the President, and that no conspiracy of any kind was involved in the murder. It was a freak occurrence of history, we were told, brought about by a supposedly disturbed loner using a cheap, war-surplus, mail-order rifle. There appeared to be little if any reason to doubt the Commission's conclusions, since the case against Oswald seemed indisputable.

However, in the months and years that followed, researchers found numerous errors and contradictions in the Commission's claims. It turned out that the case against Oswald was far from conclusive, and many questions were raised about how the Dallas police and the federal government had handled the evidence. Private researchers interviewed witnesses who had been ignored by the Commission, and in virtually every case their testimony indicated there had been a conspiracy. Then, in 1979 the public's growing doubts about the lone-gunman theory were strengthened when the House Select Committee on Assassinations formally concluded that President Kennedy was "probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy."

Today, according to public opinion polls, approximately three out of every four Americans believe that Kennedy was killed by a conspiracy. The public's reaction to Oliver Stone's movie JFK, which argues that a high-level government plot killed Kennedy, caused the U.S. Congress to hold hearings on releasing the sealed assassination files. (Although some files have been released, many still remain sealed.)

Why is finding out the whole truth about the assassination of President Kennedy still important? Why does it matter? It matters for a number of reasons. Carl Oglesby has expressed the importance of the death of President Kennedy in three basic statements:

One, an unknown group conspired to kill JFK.

Two, we, as Americans, cannot feel good about our government again until we satisfy ourselves on this matter.

Three, all of us should feel personally involved with this issue because it reflects so directly upon the quality of our citizenship. (7:13)

We have a right to expect the truth from our government. Yet, certain federal agencies continue to oppose releasing all the sealed assassination files. As a result of legislation passed in 1992, some of those files have been made public, but many are still inaccessible, and some of the documents that have been released have been heavily censored.

Our government still officially maintains the validity of the Warren Commission's infamous single-bullet theory. As Americans, we value the truth. We want to be told the truth. We don't want our government placing its (read: our) seal of approval on a falsehood. I believe it is painfully clear that the single-bullet theory was conceived for the sole purpose of deceiving the public about the true nature of the assassination. Without this theory, the Warren Commission would have had to admit that more than one gunman shot JFK. To this day, the official position of our government is that only Lee Harvey Oswald shot President Kennedy. It is time for this lie to end. It is also time for our government to acknowledge that there is considerable evidence that Oswald didn't fire a single shot during the assassination.

The assassination is important because it concerns the accuracy and credibility of what we teach and accept as history. When we accept false history, we are building on a foundation of sand. Without knowing the truth about the past, how can we learn from it? Only by understanding the whole shocking truth about the death of President Kennedy can we best be prepared to prevent such a tragedy from happening again.

And then there is the matter of justice. As Americans we have a strong sense of justice. We believe the innocent should go free and that the guilty should be punished. But those responsible for the death of President Kennedy have yet to face justice.

Although most of them are probably dead, it is likely that a few of them are still alive and could be brought to justice, if our government would pursue the case properly.

Moreover, we know the identities of several of the individuals who were involved in the cover-up. These persons could be subpoenaed and finally asked tough, probing questions about their disgraceful behavior--and, if caught lying under oath, could be prosecuted for perjury. Who are these individuals? In my opinion, the list includes former WC counsels Arlen Specter and Wesley Liebeler, the three autopsy doctors, certain active and retired FBI agents and CIA officers, and former Dallas police lieutenant J. C. Day.

This case is by no means closed, and it certainly isn't dead either. In 1992, U.S. Marshal Clint Peoples was killed hours before he was scheduled to meet with an investigator for Oliver Stone. Before he died, Peoples reportedly stated that he had been run off the road (63:498).

A few days earlier, Peoples had told a researcher that he had information about a potential suspect in the case. Shortly before key assassination witness Jean Hill appeared on the nationally broadcast documentary The JFK Conspiracy in mid-1992, she received a threatening phone call. To this day, some witnesses are still afraid to talk for fear of being harmed or harassed.

Every person who lost a son, a daughter, a brother, or a sister in the Vietnam War ought to be intensely interested in learning the whole truth about the assassination. Why? Because if President Kennedy had not been shot, there would have been no Vietnam War. More than 50,000 Americans would still be alive. Many thousands more would not be crippled or emotionally troubled.

These considerations do not seem to have mattered to the defense industrialists and oil tycoons who wanted the war and who made millions of dollars from it. But defense and oil industry elitists were not the only ones who wanted to plunge America into war in Vietnam. The Central Intelligence Agency likewise favored greater U.S. involvement in the conflict. The agency's covert operations division knew that with an escalation of the war would come an increase in their budget and activities. So for these individuals the stakes were huge. By mid-1963, they knew they had a president who was not going to escalate our involvement in Vietnam, and who in fact wanted to disengage from the fighting after the '64 election. There is wide agreement among researchers that President Kennedy's refusal to escalate the conflict in Vietnam was one of the principal reasons he was murdered.

(As a staunch conservative Republican, for years I believed the Vietnam War was justified and necessary, and that we would have easily won it if weak-hearted liberals had not hindered our military. I am still a conservative Republican, but I now realize that the Vietnam War was neither just nor necessary, and that "turning loose" the military would not have guaranteed victory. Even if we had done so and had "won," the resulting "victory" would have been of questionable worth, since the government we were backing was almost as bad and corrupt as the one we were opposing.)

In the view of some researchers, another reason President Kennedy was killed was that he posed a serious threat to certain powerful international bankers who were making millions of dollars off the Federal Reserve System. The Federal Reserve prints our money and then loans it to the government at interest. In effect, we pay to use our own money. Kennedy wanted to end this arrangement. He reasoned that by having our currency issued directly through the U.S. Treasury, the national debt could be reduced by not paying interest to the bankers of the Federal Reserve System. During his final year in office, he took steps toward making this happen. On June 4, 1963, he signed an executive order that called for the issuance of over four billion dollars in U.S. Notes through the Treasury, and some of this money is still in circulation.

In conjunction with this order, he signed a bill changing the backing of one- and two-dollar bills from silver to gold, thus strengthening our weakened U.S. currency.

Even though JFK's executive order is still in effect, no subsequent President has had the courage to enforce it. Today, we continue to pay to use Federal Reserve notes as our currency. International bankers continue to make millions at our expense. And few of us can remember the last time our government had a balanced budget.

Kennedy's monetary reforms, had they been allowed to continue, would have given us a stronger, more stable currency and would have greatly reduced the influence of international bankers on the U.S. economy. These men stood to lose millions of dollars, if not more, if JFK remained in power. As veteran journalist and researcher Jim Marrs says, "Kennedy's . . . efforts to reform the money supply and curtail the Federal Reserve System may have cost him much more than just the enmity of the all-powerful international bankers" (5:275).

In 1963, a powerful, well-financed, and highly placed conspiracy killed President John F. Kennedy and then engaged in a massive cover-up to keep the American people from knowing the truth about the murder.

Many of the same groups and individuals suspected of being involved in President Kennedy's death later surfaced in other serious crimes, including the infamous Phoenix program, Watergate, the Iran-Contra affair, and the BCCI scandal. By all appearances, the forces that killed JFK still wield significant power in our government and media. Most of the names have changed, but the attitudes and goals remain the same.

Thankfully, despite the best efforts of the government and most segments of the media to close the case, interest in President Kennedy's death is strong and growing, as more and more citizens appear to be realizing its relevance and importance.

The question is sometimes asked, How much longer until it will be impossible to reinvestigate President Kennedy's murder? In my opinion, that point will not come for at least another ten to fifteen years. Many important witnesses are still alive. Although some of these people might die in the next few years, most of them should live for at least another decade. Moreover, there are important assassination-related films, photos, and documents that have yet to be properly studied. There could be many vital documents still locked away in government vaults. The films, photos, and documents will remain, but the witnesses will eventually pass away.

We have a right to demand that a new investigation occur soon enough that the remaining witnesses can be carefully and properly interviewed.

Even if our government refuses to reinvestigate the case, we the people can effectively overturn the false story that we have been given about it. This process is already well under way. Opinion polls show that most Americans reject the lone-gunman theory. Private researchers have presented significant evidence of conspiracy. They have picked up where government investigators left off, and have developed new evidence and leads that were previously missed or ignored.

Yet, we as Americans have every right to demand that our government reinvestigate the Kennedy assassination, and to ensure that inquiry, unlike the previous ones, is careful, honest, and thorough. We have every right to expect our government to once and for all renounce the national lie that President Kennedy was killed by an unstable loner using a cheap, war-surplus rifle.

The news industry handling has been almost as inadequate and disappointing as the government's.

For example, several important, ground-breaking books on the assassination were released from 1991 to 1993. These fine works went virtually unnoticed by the press. Yet, when Gerald Posner's severely flawed pro-Warren Commission book Case Closed was released in mid-1993, it received extensive, favorable publicity, and in some cases was even endorsed or recommended by major news outlets. Equally disturbing was the news industry's reaction to Oliver Stone's movie JFK. Although the film certainly has its faults, it is remarkably accurate on many important aspects of the assassination. Nevertheless, uninformed, highly critical stories about it appeared in the press even before it was released. Major newspapers and magazines, including The Washington Post, Time, and Newsweek, strongly condemned the film but ignored the valid and important information it contained. A free society depends on a tenacious press that is dedicated to reporting the facts and to keeping the American people informed. Sadly, however, the sad truth is that for the most part the press has chosen to blindly accept official leaks and pronouncements about the assassination, instead of examining the matter independently. If the press would begin to do its job on the case, a great deal of progress would be made and the government would face irresistible pressure to conduct a new investigation.

Much is already known about the murder of President Kennedy. I think we know the identities and motives of at least some of the main figures who were behind the assassination. Yet, there is still much to be learned--much that needs to be learned about the crime. A special prosecutor or a new Congressional investigation could uncover a great deal of important information about President Kennedy's death. If enough citizens become informed, get involved, and make it clear to their elected representatives that they will settle for nothing less than a new investigation, the case will be officially reopened.

It is my hope that this book will contribute to the growing call for a new federal inquiry into the death of President Kennedy.

MICHAEL T. GRIFFITH is a two-time graduate of the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California, and of the U.S. Air Force Technical Training School in San Angelo, Texas. He is the author of three books on Mormonism and ancient religious texts. His articles on the JFK assassination have appeared in Dateline: Dallas and in Dallas '63.

Mr. Griffith lives and works in England and is an employee of the United States Department of Defense. He has a top secret security clearance. The views he expresses are his own personal views and are not the views of the United States Department of Defense.

APPENDIX C

John R. Stockwell is a former CIA case officer having served in the agency arena in Vietnam, the Congo and South America. In 1977, after having served as the Chief of the CIA's Angola Task Force, Stockwell left the CIA and was one of the first case officers ever to leave the agency and write about their innerworkings and clandestine operations. His book "IN SEARCH OF ENEMIES" was a Publisher's Weekly bestseller. The CIA sued Stockwell for breech of his secrecy agreement with them when his first book was published. The CIA won the suit and all royalties Stockwell earned from the book went to the CIA.

In 1991, Stockwell released "THE PRAETORIAN GUARD" (South End Press - Boston). On page 123, Stockwell writes:

"A team of CIA, Cuban exile and Mafia related renegades organized a simple military-style ambush in Dallas and successfully gunned him (JFK) down. The ambush and its coverup were brazen and astonishingly open. In fact, several plots, in Chicago, Miami, and Houston, to kill Kennedy had misfired or been thwarted. The plot that succeeded in Dealey Plaza was so open that various people were reported prior to the event to have said that Kennedy would be killed with a rifle and a patsy would be blamed for the crime. Individuals like Joseph Milteer, the "umbrella man," and a CIA pilot Robert Plumlee went to Dealey Plaza on the 22nd of November to watch."

In the book "DOUBLE CROSS" - written by Sam & Chuck Giancana (Warner Books - 1992) - on Pages 356 & 357, the Giancanas state:

"Most of those who were involved in the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy have been murdered. Some have committed "suicide" or spent their final days in prison, while others still linger behind bars."

There are some men, however, if we are to believe Mooney's (Sam Giancana's) tales of Mafia-CIA counterintelligence activities, who've prospered and remained free. Amassing incredible power from careers deeply rooted in the CIA, these men have reached America's loftiest positions of authority, from which they continue to influence world events."

Text of note found in the storage area of James E. Sutton alias James E. Files in Illinois:

THE MERCENARY

That....be not told of my death

Or made to grieve on account of me

And that I not be buried in consecrated ground

And that no sexton be asked to toll the bell

And that nobody is wished to see my dead body

And that no mourners walk behind me at my funeral

And that no flowers be planted on my grave

And that no man remember me

To this I put my name

Signed,

James E. Sutton/Files

1. Despite efforts by the FBI and Kroll Associates (a large detective agency made up mostly of former FBI and CIA agents) to discredit the military record of James E. Files, the official historian of the 82nd Airborne located the Army Serial Number and VA claim numbers of Mr. Files and verified that he was indeed a member of the 82nd Airborne who was shipped to Laos in 1959.

2. There is extensive evidence that James E. Files was the driver/bodyguard for Charles Nicoletti, as follows:

a. FBI agent Zack Shelton of the Beaumont, Texas FBI office (the man who gave Investigator Joe West the lead on Mr. Files) informed Mr. West that Files was Nicoletti's driver/bodyguard and close associate.

b. Files's aunt and uncle confirmed - on audio tape - that Files introduced them to Nicoletti in Chicago and that Files "did things" with Nicoletti.

c. Michael Cain, younger brother of the deceased known Mafioso Richard Cain, did a background check on Files at the request of Robert G. Vernon. Michael Cain informed Vernon that "Files was Nicoletti's boy."

d. Two of Files's friends from the Harlow Grill area in Chicago informed Vernon that Nicoletti was introduced to them by Files and that Files and Nicoletti were associates.

e. Former CIA and DEA pilot Robert "Tosh" Plumlee had flown Nicoletti on several occasions and gave Vernon information about flights with Nicoletti that only someone associated with Nicoletti could have known about. Vernon "cross-checked" the information with Files and was able to ascertain that Files had dropped Nicoletti off at various airports in the Chicago area to meet Plumlee for flights to Las Vegas and Santa Barbara, California.

3. A nightclub dancer and government informant named Rose Cheramie warned of the assassination before it occurred. She said she did so on the basis of information she had received from individuals in the Mafia. She also said she was told by Mafia men that it was common knowledge in the underworld that President Kennedy was about to be assassinated. Rose Cheramie was later killed in a suspicious car accident on a remote Texas highway.⁽⁴⁾

4. Posner rejects Cheramie's story as spurious (6:446 n). Marrs argues that it is essentially credible (5:401-402). J. Gary Shaw challenges Posner's claims about the Cheramie account point by point (55:12-14). For example, Posner claims there is no evidence that Cheramie worked for Jack Ruby, but Shaw points out that this was verified by the Louisiana State Police (55:13). Contrary to what Posner claims, Cheramie's death was not a cut-and-dried accident; rather, it was another suspicious death (5:402; 55:12-13).

- - - - -

5. Three known CIA operatives who were in Florida during the Bay of Pigs operation have identified James E. Sutton alias James E. Files as being a "young hitter from Chicago who got into trouble in Mexico and Frank Sturgis of the CIA had to go bail him out."

6. The Bay of Pigs (Research by Michael T. Griffith - U.S. Department of Defense)

President Kennedy's handling of the Bay of Pigs invasion continues to draw sharp criticism from conservatives. In their view, JFK simply lost his nerve and consequently caused the death of over 100 freedom fighters and the capture of hundreds more. This is how I used to view the Bay of Pigs debacle. I thought it was all Kennedy's fault, end of discussion. As I saw it, he had chickened out and had done great harm to the cause of freedom. Of course, those who have studied the Bay of Pigs incident know there was much more to it than Kennedy's supposed failure to follow through. Before going further, let us first examine the basic history of the event.

Shortly after taking office, President Kennedy approved a CIA plan to invade Cuba. The plan, which had been formulated toward the end of the Eisenhower administration, called for an invasion of Cuba by a force of Cuban refugees, Brigade 2506, covertly trained and backed by the CIA. The idea was to make it look like the Cuban exiles had carried out the invasion on their own with no outside assistance.

The invasion began on the morning of April 15, 1961, when eight American-supplied B-26 bombers flown by exile pilots departed from an airfield in Nicaragua and attacked Cuban air bases.⁽⁷⁾

7. 21. Some researchers say six planes were used for the first air strike, but such authors as strongly pro-Kennedy Arthur Schlesinger to anti-Kennedy Mario Lazo put the number at eight.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ⁽⁸⁾

8. 1. Says Haynes Johnson, "Why such a vast majority of all the supplies needed for any success whatsoever was committed to one ship is a question still unanswered by the CIA" (45:113). I agree wholeheartedly with Harrison Livingstone's comments on this matter:

No president is in a position to review an entire plan for each of many operations. He is the Commander in Chief and cannot micromanage every detail. He could not have known that

the . . . CIA would be so stupid as to put all the ammunition on one ship which was easily blown up with a few bullets from one small trainer jet plane. (10:43)

- - - - - - - -

9. "...FBI surveillance of Rosselli loses his trail on the west coast between November 19 and November 27 (1963)" (ALL AMERICAN MAFIOSO by Charles Rappleye and Ed Becker - Doubleday Books 1991)

10. A key figure linking the Agency to the assassination was CIA man David Atlee Phillips, who was seen with Oswald a few months before the shooting (14:504-519; 61:128-171, 391-400, 408-409. Among many other things, Phillips was the propaganda chief for the Bay of Pigs operation and later rose to become the chief of the CIA's Western Hemisphere Division. In 1954 Phillips worked with E. Howard Hunt and others to overthrow the Arbenz government in Guatemala. Based on his extensive investigation of Phillips for the Church Committee and then for the Select Committee, Gaeton Fonzi believes that "David Atlee Phillips played a key role in the conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy" (61:409). Phillips was in charge of the CIA's Cuban operations in Mexico City at the time of the assassination, so he was strategically positioned to frame Oswald, and it is very probable that he was involved in the phony Oswald visits to the Cuban embassy. Select Committee investigator Dan Hardway found that most of the individuals in Mexico City and Miami who were spreading post-assassination propaganda linking Oswald to Cuban or Soviet intelligence were "David Phillips's assets" (61:292).

11. Files stated that he stayed at the Lamplighter Motel in Mesquite in a telephone conversation with producer Robert G. Vernon. The Lamplighter Motel in Mesquite was opened in 1961. (Source: The Dallas Morning News - October 10, 1961)

12. Files told Vernon - in a telephone call - that the pancake house was on the corner of University and I-10 near a Holiday Inn in Ft. Worth. A check by Vernon revealed that the Old South Pancake house has been at that location since 1962. There is a Holiday Inn a block away. (Documentation: A letter from the owner stating that the business has been in that location since 1962)

13. Originally, the limousine would have proceeded straight down Main Street when it came to the end of the business district, and then gone directly onto Stemmons Freeway. Ordinarily, Secret Service regulations provide that the Presidential limousine is to proceed at a good speed and not take unnecessary or hazardous routes which would slow it down. The procedural manual requires the car to move at 44 miles an hour. But the route was changed so that the car made a right turn at Houston Street, at the end of the business district, and after a short block, made a left turn onto Elm Street, which led it towards and past the School Book Depository and down a small hill beneath the triple underpass. This was a perfect ambush site. (2:156)

14. The most striking find, however, was the exact location of the grassy knoll gunman. According to the acoustical calculations, this firing position was behind the picket fence, eight feet west of the corner. That was just two to seven feet from where S. M. Holland, a dozen years earlier, had placed the signs observed by himself and fellow railroad workers: the puff of smoke, muddy station wagon bumper, cigarette butts, and a cluster of footprints. (25:36)

15. (RESEARCH: Michael T. Griffith) Many of the Dealey Plaza witnesses who commented on the subject said shots were fired at the President from the front. They identified two possible sources for the frontal fire: the grassy knoll and the area immediately around the triple underpass next to the knoll. Most of the witnesses who heard shots from the knoll believed the shots came from behind the wooden (picket) fence atop the knoll, while others believed the shots came from a point closer to the triple underpass.

A number of those who heard shots coming from the grassy knoll were actually standing on the knoll itself. One such witness is Gordon Arnold, who had just finished Army basic training and had fresh memories of the sound of live rounds. Arnold was standing near the wooden fence. He reports that two shots came from behind him, and that one of them was so close he heard "the whiz over my shoulder" (14:26).

Some have questioned Arnold's story because he does not appear in photos of the knoll at the relevant time (1:34). However, the nature of the photographs does not preclude Arnold's having been at the location he describes, especially since the area where Arnold was standing was in deep shadow. Moreover, Senator Ralph Yarborough, who rode in the motorcade, recalled seeing a man in Arnold's position. Yarborough recounted that when the first round was fired he saw a man in Arnold's spot throw himself to the ground, which is significant because Arnold says he "hit the dirt" as soon as he heard gunfire (14:26). WC defenders suggest that Yarborough was actually referring to Bill Newman. But Newman was accompanied by his wife and child, and all of the Newmans hit the ground. Yarborough, on the other hand, spoke of only one person hitting the ground.

In the A&E Network's documentary The Men Who Killed Kennedy, Texas graphics expert Jack White presents photographic evidence from the Mary Moorman photo that Arnold was where he says he was. No one who has seen Arnold's gripping testimony in that documentary can doubt his sincerity or the vividness of his memory.

Another witness, Jean Hill, was standing across the street from the grassy knoll when Kennedy was shot. On the day of the shooting, she indicated she heard more than three shots and said she heard shots fired from the grassy knoll. In recent years, she has reported that she saw a muzzle flash, a puff of smoke, and the shadowy figure of a man holding a rifle barely visible above the picket fence at the top of the knoll, and that she heard four to six shots (5:37-39; cf. 5:322-324; 23:22-24). There is reason to question most of these claims. However, her initial statements and testimony that she heard four to six shots and that at least some of them came from the knoll is highly credible. Certain WC defenders have suggested or implied that initially Mrs. Hill was unsure of the origin of the shots, and that only later did she mention gunfire from the knoll and hearing more than three shots. But statements she made to a newsman less than an hour after the shooting refute this claim:

At 1:20, before word came of the President's death, NBC cut away to a local affiliate, where Tom Whelan interviewed an eyewitness named Jean Hill. He asked her to tell what she knew of the events, and she told of seeing the President react to his wounds, although she did not mention the head shot, as she would not have seen it if, in fact, it originated from the right front. She did state unequivocally, however, that "shots came from hill" [i.e., the grassy knoll]. She said it twice, and then said the car [the presidential limousine] sped away. . . .

Anchors McGee, Huntley, and Ryan all heard her words, and they never heard her say "I think" or "perhaps". . . . She also indicated there were far more than three shots. (69:19)

For many years Mrs. Hill was criticized over her initial belief that she might have seen a small white dog in the limousine. Lone-gunman theorists have used this in an effort to discredit her account. However, at a JFK assassination conference held in 1994, a researcher displayed a photo showing Jackie Kennedy receiving a small white dog from an admirer at Love Field prior to the start of the motorcade (81:178-179).

I think it is significant that of the twenty sheriff's deputies who were watching the motorcade from in front of the sheriff's office, "sixteen placed the origin of the shots near the Triple Underpass" (5:435). The triple underpass, keep in mind, was right next to the grassy knoll. Dealey Plaza witnesses Abraham Zapruder and Cheryl McKinnon likewise said shots were fired from the grassy knoll (14:23-29; 12:97-101; 5:33-89; 71:111).

Indeed, when he was being questioned by Liebeler, Zapruder was prepared to reveal evidence that there was more than one gunman, but, incredibly, Liebeler refused to pursue the matter. Zapruder told the Secret Service on the day of the shooting that the shots had come from behind him. During his WC testimony, he stated that when the shots were fired his immediate impression was that they originated to his rear. Then, he said the following:

They claim it was proven it could be done by one man. You know there was an indication there were two?

And what was Liebeler's response to this tantalizing statement from a man who had been standing on the knoll itself? "Your films," he replied, "were extremely helpful to the work of the Commission, Mr. Zapruder."

In the 1990 View, Inc. documentary JFK: The Day the Nation Cried, a dismounted motorcycle patrolman can be seen, moments after the shots were fired, looking toward the knoll and giving every appearance of trying to spot an armed adversary. He seems to have his pistol drawn, and he is crouched down and weaving back and forth as if to present a difficult target. During this time he is intensely scanning the area of the knoll.

Two witnesses who provided particularly striking evidence of a shot from the front were Charles Brehm and Bill Newman. Brehm was standing on the grass between Elm Street and Main Street and therefore had an excellent view of the shooting. It should also be observed that Brehm was a former Army Ranger and a combat veteran who was wounded twice in World War II. Thus, he was no stranger to the sound of gunfire, nor to the effects of bullets on human bodies.

In a filmed interview with attorney Mark Lane, Brehm reported that when the bullet hit Kennedy's head, hair went flying from the head. To illustrate his account, Brehm briefly held his hand over the right rear part of his skull. Then, he told Lane that some type of fragment from the head blew out and traveled leftward and to the rear, landing beside a nearby curb. I quote from the interview:

LANE. Did you see the effects of the bullets upon the President?

BREHM. When the second bullet hit, there was . . . uh . . . [briefly puts his hand over the right rear part of his head] hair seemed to go flying. It was very definite, then, that he was struck in the head with the second bullet [i.e., the second bullet to hit JFK]. And, yes, I very definitely saw the effects of the second bullet.

LANE. Did you see any particles of the President's skull fly when the bullet struck him in the head.

BREHM. I saw a piece fly over in the area of the curb where I was standing.

LANE. And in which direction did that fly?

BREHM. It seemed to have come left and back.

LANE. In other words, the skull particle flew to the left and to the rear of the presidential limousine?

BREHM. Uh, Sir, whatever it was that I saw did fall both in that direction and over into the curb there.

LANE. Were you among the closest witnesses to the limousine when the shot struck the President?

BREHM. Yes, Sir, I would have to say that I was, if not the closest one, one of the closest to the unfortunate incident.

Not surprisingly, according to news reports, on the day of the shooting Brehm was convinced that at least one shot came from in front of the limousine. One must see the interview itself to really appreciate the full impact of Brehm's account.

Bill Newman was standing on the grassy knoll during the shooting, and was no more than twenty-five feet from the limousine when JFK was struck in the head. He told a newsman during a TV interview on the day of the assassination that the shots came from behind him, i.e., from the grassy knoll, and that he saw a bullet hit the President in the side of the head, in the right temple. As Newman was describing the bullet strike, he pointed to his right temple. I quote from the interview:

NEWMAN. As the car got directly in front of us, a gunshot apparently from behind us hit the President in the side, in the temple [points to his right temple].

Q. Do you think the first shot came from behind you too?

NEWMAN. I think it came from the same location, yeah. Apparently, back up on the knoll.

Q. So you think the shot came from up on top of the viaduct toward the President? Is that correct?

NEWMAN. No, not on the viaduct itself, but up on top of the hill--on the mound of ground. . . .

So Newman saw a bullet hit JFK in the right temple, and Brehm saw hair and a piece of skull from the President's head fly backward and to the left. Moreover, it should be pointed out that Newman was not the only witness who saw a bullet strike President Kennedy in the area of the right temple. Secret Service agent Sam Kinney said he saw one shot "strike the President in the right side of the head. The President then fell to his left" (72:419). Another witness, Marilyn Sitzman, who was standing next to Abraham Zapruder, said she saw a shot hit JFK on the side of his face "above the ear and to the front . . . between the eye and the ear" (63:142).

This explains why brain matter and skull fragments were blown fiercely backward and to the left by the fatal head shot. Officer Bobby Hargis, who was riding to the left rear of the limousine, was struck so hard by a piece of skull flying toward him that he thought he himself had been hit. Hargis was also splattered by blood and brain. And Officer B. J. Martin, who was riding to Hargis's right, was likewise splattered by the spray from Kennedy's head. As none other than Dallas police chief Jesse Curry admitted, "by the direction of the blood and brains from the president from one of the shots [i.e., the head shot] it would just seem that it would have had to be fired from the front rather than behind" (25:37).

Bethesda mortician Tom Robinson, who reassembled Kennedy's skull after the autopsy, has stated that there was a small hole in one of the temples, and he believes it was in the right temple (10:579-580). On the day of the shooting, White House official Malcolm Kilduff, speaking at a news conference at Parkland Hospital, reported to the press that Kennedy was shot in the right temple, and he even pointed to his own right temple to illustrate what he was saying (18:330; 68:59). Furthermore, all but one of the Dallas doctors and nurses who treated the President said there was a large wound in the rear of his head, and they identified that wound as an exit wound. Clearly, the fatal head shot came from the front, exited the back of the head, and blew blood, brain, and skull fragments to the rear.

Moore points out that thirteen out of fifteen witnesses in the presidential motorcade who were asked about the origin of the shots said "that the shots came from above, not street level" (3:35).

Some conspiracy theorists suggest that the testimony of the people in the motorcade might be colored and should therefore be "cautiously assessed" (4:37). Moore strongly objects to this suggestion (3:35). "Colored?" Moore asks. "Just because the witnesses happened to be government employees or their spouses?" One indication that such might be the case came from Tip O'Neill, the former Speaker of the House of Representatives. O'Neill recounted a dinner conversation that he had five years after the assassination with two Kennedy aides who were riding in the motorcade, Kenneth O'Donnell and Dave Powers:

I was surprised to hear O'Donnell say that he was sure he had heard two shots that came from behind the fence [i.e., the wooden fence on the grassy knoll].

"That's not what you told the Warren Commission," I said.

"You're right," he replied. "I told the FBI what I had heard, but they said it couldn't have happened that way and that I must have been imagining things. So I testified the way they wanted me to...."

Dave Powers was with us at dinner that night, and his recollection of the shots was the same as O'Donnell's. Kenny O'Donnell is no longer alive, but during the writing of this book I checked with Dave Powers. As they say in the news business, he stands by his story. (24:211, emphasis added)

How many other persons did the FBI pressure into testifying "the way they wanted me to"? How many other witnesses really heard shots from the front but changed their story to satisfy federal agents?

Some people reported seeing individuals with rifles or rifle cases, and puffs of smoke, on or near the grassy knoll. And several people, including Senator Yarborough and two police officers, said they smelled gunpowder on or near the grassy knoll just after the President was shot.

16. Numerous witnesses reported that two of the shots came in very rapid succession, nearly simultaneously. These witnesses said the two shots came so closely together that they sounded like a single burst (see, for example, 8:249, 253, 278, 298; 72:92, 93, 99, 115, 407, 427)

17. In 1987, a Dallas man (John Rademacher) and his son dug up a .222 caliber shell casing in Dealey Plaza near the wooden stockade fence. The casing had dents in it. A lab examination by Dr. Paul G. Stimson, a noted forensic odontologist at the University of Texas in Houston, issued a written medicolegal opinion that marks or dents in the casing were made by human teeth.

18. The HSCA's photographic panel found strong evidence in the Zapruder film that Kennedy was struck between frames 186 and 190. The panel concluded that "President Kennedy first showed a reaction to some severe external stimulus by Z207 as he is seen going behind a street sign that obstructed Zapruder's view" (6 HSCA 16). The panel believed the shot was fired a few frames before Z190, i.e., during the foliage break (cf. 12:119-120). When the panel did a blur analysis of the film, it detected a significant blur episode during frames 189-197, indicating that the shot that caused the jiggle was fired a few frames before frame 189. Numerous private researchers have studied the film and have likewise determined that this shot was fired a fraction of a second before frame 190. The most reasonable conclusion, therefore, is that this shot was fired from one of the buildings adjacent to the TSBD, quite possibly from the Dal-Tex Building.

19. Dallas businessman Malcolm Sommers is on record in both the Dallas Sheriff's Department Report and The Warren Commission Report as stating that he saw a burgundy or maroon Chevrolet with three men in it drive out of the Dal-Tex parking lot and down the street away from the Plaza.

20. A check of Oswald's whereabouts in early and mid-1963 by Robert G. Vernon showed that Oswald was indeed in New Orleans during the period Files says he and Oswald met there.

21. Gerald Posner dismisses the testimony of the witnesses in Clinton and Jackson, Louisiana, who said they saw Oswald and Ferrie together in the summer of 1963 (6:141-148). These highly credible witnesses included a state representative, a deputy sheriff, and a town registrar of voters. Posner's reasons for rejecting their testimony are strained and unconvincing. He even suggests that the witnesses never actually saw Oswald. Jim Garrison and his staff found the Clinton and Jackson witnesses to be credible (19:122-126). Years later, the House Select Committee interviewed these witnesses in executive session and concluded they were honest, sincere, and believable (12:193-194).

22. Former Senator Richard Schweiker has declared,

I personally believe that he [Oswald] had a special relationship with one of the intelligence agencies, which one I'm not certain. But all the fingerprints I found during my eighteen months on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence point to Oswald as being a product of, and interacting with, the intelligence community. (14:266)

In addition, three former U.S. intelligence agents maintain that Oswald was working for at least one U.S. intelligence agency.

After he was arrested on the day of the assassination, Oswald tried to call a man named "Hurt" in Raleigh, North Carolina, at two different numbers listed for that name. Oswald had no known contacts or friends in North Carolina. Former CIA officer Victor Marchetti points out that Oswald's call was made to a number in the same general area as a base where, according to Marchetti, Naval Intelligence once planned infiltration missions into the Soviet Union (14:146). One of the two Hurts in Raleigh at that time was a John D. Hurt, who had worked in military intelligence during World War II. Oswald was unable to contact Mr. Hurt because two Secret Service agents instructed the switchboard operator at the Dallas police station to unplug the connection before the call could go through (14:146). Marchetti believes Oswald worked for the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) and that it was the ONI which sent him to Russia as a phony defector.

Former HSCA investigator Gaeton Fonzi reports that he found strong evidence of an Oswald-CIA connection. Says Fonzi,

There is . . . a preponderance of evidence that indicates Lee Harvey Oswald had an association with a U.S. Government agency, perhaps more than one, but undoubtedly with the Central Intelligence Agency. (61:408)

Fonzi discusses this subject at length in his book The Last Investigation (New York: Thunder's Mouth Press, 1993).

23. JFK and the CIA were in a virtual state of war from the moment of the Bay of Pigs disaster until the day he died. JFK did not trust the CIA and he reportedly intended to dismantle it after the 1964 election. In Vietnam, the CIA refused to carry out instructions from the ranking American official in the country (4:ix). The CIA ignored President Kennedy's directive that it not initiate operations requiring greater firepower than a handgun (43:99-100). It also ignored JFK's orders to stop working with the Mafia. When Kennedy heard the news that South Vietnam's dictator Ngo Diem had been murdered by a CIA-backed coup, against his express wishes, he was outraged. Kennedy was no fan of Diem's, but he did not want to see him murdered. General Maxwell Taylor wrote that upon learning of Diem's death JFK "leaped to his feet and rushed from the room with a look of shock and dismay on his face" (70:334). George Smathers reported that Kennedy blamed the CIA for Diem's murder. According to Smathers, Kennedy said he had to "do something about" the CIA and that the Agency should be stripped of its exorbitant power (70:334-335).

One of the more troubling cases of CIA disobedience to presidential authority was its behavior in relation to Cuba. In September 1963, long after President Kennedy had ordered a halt to the covert campaign against Castro, senior CIA staffers, including the deputy director, Richard Helms, and Desmond Fitzgerald, the head of the Agency's Cuba unit, approved plans to kill Castro, without seeking presidential authorization. They also continued other covert operations against Cuba in violation of the President's instructions. Needless to say, these CIA officers did not inform the President of their activities; nor did they inform Congress or the Attorney General, Robert Kennedy. They didn't even tell then-CIA director John McCone, probably because he was appointed by President Kennedy following the Bay of Pigs disaster. In short, as Anthony Summers has observed, "in September and October 1963--a crucial moment politically--CIA officers were acting in a way that gravely endangered White House policy" (14:322).

Livingstone rejects a CIA role in the assassination, reasoning that the Agency couldn't have been involved since Kennedy replaced Allen Dulles with a man of his own choosing, John McCone. But this argument ignores the fact that the Agency has a history of working around directors it doesn't like. As for McCone, he exercised very little control over the CIA and was kept in the dark about a number of its activities. For instance, Fonzi notes that "Richard Helms, who was McCone's Deputy Director and head of the dirty tricks department, admitted he never told McCone about any of the Agency's plans to kill Castro, or about the CIA's working relationship with the Mafia" (61:334; cf. 61:361).

A key figure linking the Agency to the assassination was CIA man David Atlee Phillips, who was seen with Oswald a few months before the shooting (14:504-519; 61:128-171, 391-400, 408-409. Among many other things, Phillips was the propaganda chief for the Bay of Pigs operation and later rose to become the chief of the CIA's Western Hemisphere Division. In 1954 Phillips worked with E. Howard Hunt and others to overthrow the Arbenz government in Guatemala. Based on his extensive investigation of Phillips for the Church Committee and then for the Select Committee, Gaeton Fonzi believes that "David Atlee Phillips played a key role in the conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy" (61:409). Phillips was in charge of the CIA's Cuban operations in Mexico City at the time of the assassination, so he was strategically positioned to frame Oswald, and it is very probable that he was involved in the phony Oswald visits to the Cuban embassy. Select Committee investigator Dan Hardway found that most of the individuals in Mexico City and Miami who were spreading post-assassination propaganda linking Oswald to Cuban or Soviet intelligence were "David Phillips's assets" (61:292).

Another former CIA agent who has come under suspicion is E. Howard Hunt. Hunt, a former high-ranking covert operator and a propaganda specialist, was a key figure in the Bay of Pigs invasion. As mentioned, Hunt and David Atlee Phillips helped to overthrow the Arbenz government in Guatemala. According to former (and now deceased) CIA operative Frank Sturgis, who knew Hunt well, Hunt was involved in CIA assassination operations. Hunt has made no secret of his intense dislike for John Kennedy. To this day, Hunt blames JFK for the failure at the Bay of Pigs. When Watergate whistleblower John Dean opened Hunt's private safe, he found bogus telegrams that falsely linked JFK with the assassination of South Vietnam's corrupt dictator Ngo Dinh Diem (16:79).

Where was E. Howard Hunt on November 22, 1963? Hunt has given conflicting accounts of where he was at the time of the shooting. In his 1985 libel trial in Miami, Florida, the jury concluded Hunt was not being truthful about his whereabouts on the day of the assassination.

24. Another former CIA agent who has come under suspicion is E. Howard Hunt. Hunt, a former high-ranking covert operator and a propaganda specialist, was a key figure in the Bay of Pigs invasion. As mentioned, Hunt and David Atlee Phillips helped to overthrow the Arbenz government in Guatemala. According to former (and now deceased) CIA operative Frank Sturgis, who knew Hunt well, Hunt was involved in CIA assassination operations. Hunt has made no secret of his intense dislike for John Kennedy. To this day, Hunt blames JFK for the failure at the Bay of Pigs. When Watergate whistleblower John Dean opened Hunt's private safe, he found bogus telegrams that falsely linked JFK with the assassination of South Vietnam's corrupt dictator Ngo Dinh Diem (16:79).

25. The day before the assassination, Eugene Hale Brading, a Mafia man with a long arrest record, visited Hunt's office building in Dallas. Brading was arrested in Dealey Plaza on the day of the shooting when he was found to have taken an elevator to the ground floor of the Dal-Tex Building shortly after the shots were fired. Brading was released, however, because he gave the police an alias. While in Dallas, Brading stayed at the Cabana Hotel.

On January 30, 1995, Files informed Vernon that Brading's "mission" was to get Nicoletti and Rosselli into the Dal-Tex Building.

26. On January 30, 1995, Files informed Vernon that David Atlee Phillips was the person who had Oswald meet Files in Dallas.

27. Mr. Files has supplied Robert G. Vernon with a color photograph of the man who killed J.D. Tippit and a positive identification is under investigation as of this writing. Mr. Files will not name the alleged killer of Officer Tippit.

28. The Murder of Officer Tippit (Research by Michael T. Griffith)

Posner says that eyewitnesses, ballistics, and physical evidence prove that Oswald murdered Officer J. D. Tippit a little over forty minutes after he allegedly shot JFK (6:273-280). Posner ignores significant evidence of Oswald's innocence and merely repeats the WC's untenable version of the killing. The case against Oswald in Tippit's murder is so weak that I see no need to analyze all of Posner's assertions. For more information on the tenuous nature of the evidence against Oswald in the Tippit affair, I would invite the reader to compare Posner's treatment of the issue with that of such writers as Marrs, Lane, Summers, and Hurt (5:350-353; 4:190-208; 14:84-97; 71:139-169). However, I would like to examine some of the evidence that Posner ignores:

* The witness with the best view of the shooting, Domingo Benavides, at first said he could not identify Tippit's killer. Then, after his brother had been murdered, Benavides told the WC that a photo of Oswald "bore a resemblance" to the assailant. It was three years after the shooting until Benavides made a somewhat firm identification of Oswald.

* Two witnesses to the Tippit slaying described a killer who did not resemble Oswald.

* Two other witnesses said Oswald entered the Texas Theater just a few minutes after 1:00 P.M., and that he remained in the theater until he was arrested there about an hour later. But Tippit was killed at no later than 1:10.

* Officer J. M. Poe marked two of the empty shells found at the crime scene with his initials, a standard chain-of- evidence procedure, but none of the shells produced by the FBI and the WC as evidence of Oswald's guilt had Poe's markings on them.

* Helen Markham, Posner's star witness against Oswald in the Tippit shooting, gave such wildly conflicting and confused testimony that one WC staffer called her an "utter screwball." Mrs. Markham gave different descriptions of the assailant. Although by all accounts (including Posner's) Tippit died instantly, Mrs. Markham said she conversed with him after he was shot, for an astounding twenty minutes. Some of the witnesses denied Mrs. Markham was even at the scene of the crime.

A Frantic 43 Minutes

A telling point for Oswald's innocence is the fact that he did not have enough time to go from the TSBD to the scene of the Tippit slaying. The WC said he left the Depository at 12:33 P.M. and killed Tippit 43 minutes later, at 1:15. But even a casual review of Oswald's alleged movements shows he could not have done what the Commission said he did.

Posner disagrees, saying,

Could Oswald have physically been at the Tippit scene by 1:15, the time of the shooting? A reconstruction of the time that elapsed since he left the Depository shows it is more than possible. (6:274 n)

But Posner's TSBD-to-Oak-Cliff scenario relies heavily on the WC's untenable version of Oswald's post-assassination movements. For example, Posner accepts the WC's claim that Tippit was shot at 1:15 P.M. However, eyewitness statements and Dallas police radio transcripts indicate the shooting occurred no later than 1:12. Posner departs from the Commission version by saying that Oswald left his rooming house just before 1:00. Posner does this in order to get Oswald to the Tippit scene by 1:15. Yet, according to Oswald's landlady, he did not leave the house until 1:03 or 1:04 (14:92). The plain fact of the matter is that any reconstruction which places Oswald at the Tippit scene by 1:12, or even by 1:15, is contrary to the evidence. Oswald simply could not have made it there in time to commit the crime.

Helen Markham said Tippit was shot at around 1:06. Other witnesses agreed that the shooting occurred just a few minutes after 1:00. T. F. Bowley, who radioed the police dispatcher from Tippit's car, reported that his watch said 1:10 when he drove up to the crime scene. Bowley contacted the police dispatcher at right around 1:16, according to the police radio transcripts. This was after Domingo Benavides waited in his truck for "a few minutes" (out of fear the killer would return), got out of his truck, attempted to help Tippit, climbed into the squad car, and then fumbled with the radio trying to figure out how it worked. It was at this point that Bowley appeared inside the car, took the radio from Benavides, and contacted the dispatcher.

In all probability, Tippit was shot between 1:08 and 1:10, and absolutely no later than 1:12. But Oswald did not leave his boarding house until around 1:03 or 1:04, and his landlady reported that he lingered in the immediate vicinity of the house for a little bit. Oswald did not drive, and an inquiry of residents in the area failed to produce anyone who had seen a man running at the time in question. Even assuming a good walking speed of four miles an hour, it would have taken Oswald no less than twelve minutes to reach the Tippit crime scene. Therefore, Oswald could not have been present to shoot Tippit at 1:15, much less three to seven minutes earlier.

A research team from the All American Television Company did a reconstruction of Oswald's movements from the TSBD to the Tippit scene for the 1992 documentary The JFK Conspiracy, which was hosted by world-famous actor James Earl Jones. The team confirmed that Oswald could not have arrived to the scene of the crime even by 1:15. I quote from James Earl Jones' narration:

At 12:33 the Warren Commission said Oswald left the Depository and walked seven blocks to catch a bus. . . . Meanwhile, after traveling a couple of blocks, the bus was caught in an immense traffic jam. They said he got off the bus.

At 12:48, they said Oswald climbed into a taxi. They gave him six minutes to reach his next stop [his neighborhood in Oak Cliff]. It took us over eight [minutes], without traffic.

The Commission said Oswald entered his boarding house at one o'clock. At 1:03, his landlady said he [Oswald] left the house and went to the northbound bus stop. Yet, in order to kill Officer Tippit, he had to travel south. So, the Commission said he must have changed his mind.

The witnesses all said Tippit was killed no later than 1:10 [nearly all of them said this], and that was after the policeman and his killer had a conversation [according to the WC's star witness, Helen Markham]. Seven minutes [for Oswald to get from his house to the murder scene]. Oswald simply didn't have enough time.

In every case, the Commission failed the time test, and we had no congested traffic to deal with.

29. A witness named Julia Ann Mercer said she saw a man who looked like Jack Ruby driving a truck next to the grassy knoll prior to the assassination. Sources: Marrs, Crossfire, pp. 18-19, 324-325; Smith, JFK: The Second Plot 76-81; Garrison, On the Trail of the Assassins, pp. 16-17, 251-253. Jack Ruby was a Mafia man and an important Dallas mobster. Sources: Davis, Mafia Kingfish, pp. 156-160, 180-184, 282-297; Scheim, The Mafia Killed President Kennedy, pp. 112-305.

30. In the 1990 View, Inc. documentary JFK: The Day the Nation Cried, a dismounted motorcycle patrolman can be seen, moments after the shots were fired, looking toward the knoll and giving every appearance of trying to spot an armed adversary. He seems to have his pistol drawn, and he is crouched down and weaving back and forth as if to present a difficult target. During this time he is intensely scanning the area of the knoll.

31. Zapruder is on record as saying he heard a shot come from behind him, over his right shoulder.

32. In Josiah Thompson's book "SIX SECONDS IN DALLAS" - there is a blow-up of the Moorman photograph which clearly shows what appears to be a gray fedora (hat) sticking up above the top of the wooden stockade fence in the exact area where Mr. Files said he was standing. Files has confessed that he put on the gray fedora after he reversed his jacket from a plaid lining to gray to walk away. Lee Bowers, the railroad worker, testified that he saw a man behind the stockade fence wearing a plaid "jacket." (Warren Commission Report)

33. In a letter to Certified Legal Investigator Joe West in 1992, Mr. Files stated that he kept the Fireball after the assassination of JFK. Files further stated that while he was incarcerated in the early 1980's, that his cousin had taken the Fireball from his aunt's home where he had it stored and the cousin was arrested and the weapon confiscated by the police. Investigator West contacted the police department where Files said the weapon was located. West was informed that there was no record of the weapon. After West's death in 1993, producer Vernon contacted the Illinois police and they acknowledged that the weapon was indeed there at one time and an old report (typed and handwritten) was finally located. The weapon was not in the police department locker and has disappeared. Vernon offered a $10,000 reward for the weapon in 1994, however no one has come forth with the weapon or with any information about the weapon.

34. THE JANUARY-FEBRUARY 1995 BLUE, TEXAS, BALLISTICS TESTS RELATING TO THE MOVEMENTS OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY'S HEAD IN FRAMES CIRCA 312-323 OF THE ABRAHAM ZAPRUDER FILM

The Blue, Texas, tests were conducted on a series of weekends in January and February 1995 by John Stockwell, Art Stockwell, and Jodi Peterson on private property near Blue, Texas.

For ten years, John Stockwell was a hunter in the Belgian Congo in Africa. Then he was trained and served for seven years as a Marine Corps infantry officer and "recon" officer. For thirteen years he was a CIA intelligence officer and paramilitary specialist with field experience in the "low intensity" conflicts in the Congo, Vietnam, and Angola.

Since 1978, Stockwell has been a writer, lecturer, and critic of the U.S. national security complex. Since 1981, he has studied and researched the John F. Kennedy assassination. He was a paid consultant (eventually a dissenting consultant) in Oliver Stone's JFK film project.

Art Stockwell is an expert shooter who can hit 8-inch targets with a pistol at ranges greater than 40 yards.

Jodi Peterson is also a shooter.

PURPOSE

To re-examine the Alvarez and Lattimer findings regarding the direction in which a target is propelled following impact by a high-velocity bullet.

(Alvarez and Lattimer found that the "jet effect" of an exiting bullet propels the target towards the rifle. They concluded that this was scientific proof that no shot fired into President Kennedy's head from the direction of the grassy knoll or the railroad overpass could explain the violent backward movement of Kennedy's head and shoulders that is clearly revealed in frames #313-323 of the Zapruder film, but that the shot into the back and top of Kennedy's head that blew away the right top side of his head could explain that backward movement.)

CONCLUSIONS

A clear pattern emerged in the Blue, Texas, tests. When a solid target roughly the size and density of a human head was struck dead center by a solid round, a hollow point or a special exploding round, the "jet effect" did seem to work, propelling the target in the direction of the rifle that fired the shot (hereafter "the rifle").

However, when the solid target was struck in the upper quadrant (where the autopsy X-rays and photographs definitively place the shot to Kennedy's head from behind) the target was propelled away from the rifle.

When a target that was not solid (for example, a melon in which the seed core had substantially dried) was struck dead center, there was no "jet-effect" and the target was propelled neither forward nor backward and instead remained balanced on the stand. However, when such melons were struck in the top quadrant, they rolled in the direction away from the rifle.

These findings, in the case of the Kennedy assassination, seem to confirm the Alvarez/Lattimer principle, but clearly demonstrate a contradictory phenomenon that seems to make it possible that, a) the shot that struck the back of President Kennedy's head from behind initially could in fact have made his head start forward and b) a shot from the grassy knoll (i.e., from the right front) could have provided the energy that drove his head and shoulders backward and to his left.

BACKGROUND

In 1964, the Warren Commission concluded in its report that, in his assassination in Dealey Plaza, President John Kennedy had been struck by one bullet high in his back and one in the back of his head. Although there were grumblings of doubt, there was no substantial challenge of these findings until researchers, beginning with Professor Josiah Thompson, viewed the Zapruder film of the assassination.

In the Zapruder film, it is clear that Kennedy is struck in the back of the head after frame 312, with the bullet exiting dramatically in the region above the right temple in frame 313. With the impact of this bullet, his head starts forward. However, a split second later his head and upper body lurch violently backwards and to his left. To both expert shooters and laymen alike, the movement backwards could only be explained by a second shot striking him from the right front (i.e., the area of the grassy knoll).

More than any one piece of evidence, this backward movement of Kennedy's head between frames #313-323, with the seemingly overpowering logic of the visible, "common sense" explanation, fueled a broad movement of skepticism of the Warren Commission Report and the "lone shooter" hypothesis, literally to the point of compelling the House Select Committee on Assassinations investigation of the assassination in 1976-1978.

However, a Nobel Prize-winning scientist, Dr. Luis Alvarez, demonstrated both theoretically and experimentally that, according to the Law of Conservation of Momentum and the Law of Conservation of Energy, the material exiting after the bullet in such a head wound will work like a small rocket engine, driving the target backwards and towards the rifle! To prove his theory, Alvarez (caused to be) fired rifle rounds into seven melons that had been reinforced with filament tape. Six of the melons recoiled towards the rifle.

Alvarez was criticized for the procedures and setup he used in his tests (for example, he used a rifle with a muzzle velocity of about 3200 feet per second and he used soft-nosed bullets in testing a hypothesis relating to Oswald's Mannlicher-Carcano which had a muzzle velocity of 2200 feet per second and fired a steel-jacketed bullet).

Thereafter, Dr. John K. Lattimer, a urologist with no forensic experience or training in head wounds, set up an experiment using human skulls that were packed with solid melon and white paint and then taped and sewn tightly together. He used an Oswald-type rifle and steel jacketed rounds. In each of his twelve experimental test-firings, the skull fell towards the rifle.

The Alvarez and Lattimer tests seemed to deal a serious blow to the hypothesis of a shooter on the grassy knoll. Clearly, a shot coming from the right front would be expected to cause the president's head to lurch towards the grassy knoll, rather than violently back into the seat of the limousine. At the same time, they seemed to offer a plausible explanation of how a shot from behind could in fact, contrary to "common knowledge" perceptions, account for the backward movement of Kennedy's head and shoulders.

It is also noted that, in early 1964, Dr. Alfred Olivier of the U.S. Army's Edgemont Arsenal in Maryland had fired rounds into twelve empty human skulls. The skulls were propelled neither forward nor backward from the stand on which they were sitting.

THE BLUE, TEXAS, BALLISTICS TESTS

In the Blue, Texas, ballistics tests, 14 targets similar in weight and density to those used by Drs. Alvarez and Lattimer were balanced on a saw horse in such a way that it would be clear whether they jumped frontwards or backwards when struck by rifle bullets.

Rifles with comparable ballistics characteristics to Oswald's 6.5 Mannlicher-Carcano and James E. Files's Remington Fireball were used. These were an Enfield .303 with a muzzle velocity of 2400 feet per second and an AR-15 .223 with a muzzle velocity of 3200 fps. (The AR-15 round is virtually identical to the Remington Fireball .222-.223. The Enfield .303 fires a 16% larger round about 10% faster than the Mannlicher-Carcano.)

With the AR-15, hollow point and special rounds were used to duplicate James E. Files's exploding rounds.

RESULTS

3 targets that were struck in the center did not fall either towards or away from the rifle (apparently because of insufficient density in the melons.)

4 targets that were struck in the center were propelled towards the rifle.

6 targets that were struck in the upper quadrant were propelled away from the rifle.

There were no exceptions. i.e., no target that was struck in the center was propelled away from the rifle, and no target that was struck in the upper quadrant was propelled towards the rifle.

THE MELONS:

2 melons struck in the center by bullets from the Enfield did not jump either forwards or backwards.

2 melons struck in the upper right hand quadrant by rounds from the Enfield rolled away from and to the left from the rifle.

1 melon struck in the center by a bullet from the AR-15 did not jump forwards or backwards.

1 melon struck in its center by a bullet from the AR-15 rolled off the saw horse in the direction of the rifle.

1 melon struck in its center by a bullet from the AR-15 jumped about 3-4 inches towards the rifle.

In these tests a pattern seemed to be indicated, that when the melons were struck in the center by an exploding round, they either did not move or they recoiled towards the rifle. However, when they were struck in the upper quadrant, they moved away from the rifle. We surmised that our melons did not have sufficient density to provide a satisfactory test of the "jet effect."

THE 1-GALLON SEALED CANS OF HOMINY, WEIGHING 6 LBS.:

1 can, struck in the center by an exploding hollow point round from the AR-15 jumped about 2 feet towards the rifle.

2 cans, struck in the upper quadrant by special exploding rounds (comparable to the ones used by Files) jumped over one foot away from the rifle.

1 can, struck in the upper quadrant by an exploding hollow point jumped away from the rifle.

1 can, struck dead center by a jacketed, 175-grain bullet from the Enfield (Oswald's rounds were about 160 grains) jumped 6 feet towards the rifle.

1 can, struck in the upper quadrant by a 175-grain bullet from the Enfield jumped 2 feet away from the rifle.

35. On page 588 of Volume 25 of the Warren Commission Report, there is evidence not pursued by the Warren Commission of Osawld being seen with a "teenager" firing weapons in a field. A picture of James E. Files at age 21 was given to investigator West by Files. Robert G. Vernon had the picture examined by police sketch artist Lois Gibson of the Houston Police Department. Ns. Gibson is one of the leading photo identification experts in the USA and handles work of this nature for the FBI, DEA, State of Texas, State of New Mexico and the State of Arkansas. Ms. Gibson verified that the picture of the 21 year old man is indeed James E. Files. In the picture, Files appears to be a "teenager."

36. In 1992, Investigator Joe West filed a suit to exhume the body of JFK in both Federal Court in Houston and in the 160th Judicial District of Dallas. While the Federal action was thrown out of court for lack of standing, the Dallas action was deemed valid. In late 1992, Mr. West had a series of heart attacks and died in early 1993. The legal case died with him.

37. On August 9, 1993, the FBI - after making a deal with Files's attorney, Don Ervin of Houston to talk to Files with Ervin present - went around Ervin and visited Files at Joliet. Former Joliet Warden Salvador Godinez (now the Deputy Director of the Michigan Department of Corrections) informed Vernon that the FBI "muscled" their way into the prison to see Files through Internal Affairs and that there is no record of their visit. The FBI did release a report on their visit with Files and gave the Assassination Archives Review Board a copy of the report. The report indicates that the FBI attempted to discredit Files by doubting his military record and trying to trick him into identifying FBI agents with Italian names as Mafia members. Mr. Files's confession to the FBI regarding his part in the JFK assassination is consistent with the transcription herein.

38. Richard Helms committed perjury when he appeared before a Congressional Committee in the 1970's and has since retired from the CIA and lives abroad.

39. Former CIA - DEA pilot Robert "Tosh" Plumlee has confessed that he was the co-pilot on a CIA supported flight that flew Johnny Rosselli into Dallas on the morning of 11/22/63. Mr. Plumlee also related that Rosselli had come from Washington before catching the flight to Dallas in Tampa.

40. When FBI agent Zack Shelton first gave investigator West the lead on James E. Files, Shelton verified that FIles had been stripped and tortured and left for dead. Shelton also told West that the FBI had been unable to "break" Files into talking about any crimes in which he was involved.

41. Files's birthdate, place of birth and various aspects of his younger years were confirmed by his mother's sister to Vernon. His aunt also told Vernon that Files had sent her and her husband letters from Vietnam in the early 60's telling them that the "Government has turned me into a killer."

42. According to lone-gunman theorists, Oswald used the alleged murder weapon to shoot and kill President Kennedy on November 22, 1963. However, when a paraffin test was performed on Oswald's cheek to detect the presence of gunpowder residue, it came back negative. Lone-gunman theorists reply that the paraffin test performed on the cheek of an FBI man who test-fired the Mannlicher-Carcano for the WC was also negative. This supposedly proves the paraffin test is irrelevant. However, for the FBI's test-firing to have been valid, the rifle would have had to be in direct contact with the agent's cheek when fired. The WC did not specify that this requirement was met, and the Commission refused to allow a lawyer acting in Oswald's behalf to observe the test conducted by the FBI agent.

Perhaps the negative results of the November 22 paraffin test explain why the Dallas police declined to test the Mannlicher-Carcano to see if it had been fired in the last several hours.⁽⁴³⁾

43. This is staggering to consider. Here you had the alleged murder weapon in the most important murder case of the century, but the Dallas police department failed to test it to see if it had been fired that day!

44. According to author Gerald Posner, the fatal head shot came from behind and exploded out of the "right side" of Kennedy's head (6:307-316). There is massive eyewitness testimony against this view and for the fact that the fatal head shot came from the front and exited the right rear portion of the President's skull. Virtually all lone-gunman theorists deny there was a large defect in the rear of JFK's head, but the wound was closely observed by numerous witnesses, including Parkland and Bethesda medical personnel. Harrison Livingstone has superbly documented this eyewitness evidence in his books High Treason 2 and Killing the Truth.

Posner attacks two of the Dallas doctors who continue to maintain that the large wound was in the back of the head, Dr. Robert McClelland and Dr. Charles Crenshaw, who recently wrote a book rejecting the autopsy findings.

Posner engages in a scurrilous attack on Dr. Crenshaw, questioning his sanity and veracity. As part of his attack, Posner quotes some disparaging comments about Crenshaw made by an anonymous "close Crenshaw friend" (6:313-314). Posner does not inform his readers that Dr. Crenshaw, a man of impeccable reputation, is Clinical Professor of Surgery at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School and is on the staff of John Peter Smith Hospital and St. Joseph Hospital in Fort Worth, Texas. In addition, Dr. Crenshaw has been honored with inclusion in several medical and professional societies and has published extensively.

Dr. Crenshaw was present during the efforts to save JFK's life. He noted "much of what was going on, and his recollections are extensive" (10:110). Dr. Crenshaw says the large defect was in the back of the President's head, and he is certain the wound could only have been caused by a shot from the front. After the President had been pronounced dead, Dr. Crenshaw stood right behind Aubrey Rike as Rike helped to put Kennedy's body in the coffin. He remembers Rike commenting that he could feel the edges of bone around the hole in the back of the President's head (10:112). Rike has confirmed this in numerous interviews (e.g., 10:118).

Apparently Posner couldn't find an anonymous "close friend" of Dr. McClelland's to assail his sanity and character, so he questions the doctor's judgment and memory. Three of the other Dallas doctors, along with Dr. Michael Baden, a long-time defender of the single-assassin theory, are enlisted to assist in the attack (6:312-313). However, Dr. McClelland, a deeply religious man, has been consistent in his descriptions of JFK's head wound. He told the WC that the large defect was in the back of the head, and, unlike some of the other Dallas doctors, he has never had a convenient change of memory. Moreover, it is strange that when Dr. McClelland testified before the WC, not one of the other Parkland doctors questioned or contradicted his testimony on this issue. In fact, all but one of the Dallas doctors who testified before the Commission on the subject placed the head wound in the right rear part of the skull, just as Dr. McClelland did (18:308-337). And, the one Dallas doctor who seemed to differ with his colleagues on the head wound later placed it more toward the right rear part of the head in a filmed interview (68:87).

Dr. Peters' change of memory seems to be especially pronounced. According to Posner, Dr. Peters now accepts the WC's placement of the head wound. However, when asked about the wound for the documentary The Men Who Killed Kennedy, he said,

I could see that he had a large, about seven-centimeter, opening in the right occipital-parietal area [i.e., the right rear part of the head]. A considerable portion of the brain was missing there, and the occipital cortex, the back portion of the brain, was lying down near the opening of the wound, and blood was trickling out.

As Dr. Peters gave this description of the head wound, he repeatedly illustrated his explanation by placing his right hand on the right rear part of the head, exactly where Crenshaw and McClelland locate the wound.

Just what is the evidence that there was a large wound in the back of President Kennedy's head? The following individuals got a good look at, and in many cases also handled, the President's head and are on record that the large wound was in the rear of the skull:

* Audrey Bell, a nursing supervisor at Parkland Hospital.

* Diana Bowron, Parkland Hospital nurse. Nurse Bowron actually cleaned the large defect and packed it with gauze squares in preparing the body for the casket. She vividly remembers that the large head wound was in the right rear part of the skull.

* Dr. Kemp Clark, Parkland Hospital.

* Dr. Charles Crenshaw, Parkland Hospital.

* Jerrol Custer, the x-ray technician at Bethesda Hospital who took the President's autopsy x-rays.

* Dr. Richard Dulaney, Parkland Hospital.

* Dr. John Ebersole, Bethesda Hospital radiologist. In an extensive interview with his hometown newspaper in 1978, Dr. Ebersole said, "When the body was removed from the casket there was a very obvious horrible gaping wound in the back of the head"

(18:543).

* William Greer, Secret Service agent, who drove the presidential limousine.

* Clint Hill, a Secret Service agent who was taken to the morgue for the express purpose of viewing the President's wounds and who was also in the Parkland trauma room when the President was being treated. It was Agent Hill who climbed onto the back of the limousine to get Jackie Kennedy to return to her seat. Hill testified that as he was lying over the top of the back seat "I noticed a portion of the President's head on the right rear side was missing and he was bleeding profusely" (8:285, emphasis added).

* Patricia Hutton (now Patricia Gustaffson), a nurse at Parkland Hospital who placed a bandage against the wound in the back of the head.

* James Curtis Jenkins, a Navy lab technician at Bethesda Hospital who was present at the autopsy.

* Dr. Robert Karnei, Bethesda Hospital, who was present at the autopsy.

* Roy Kellerman, a Secret Service agent who was present at the autopsy.

* Dr. Robert McClelland, Parkland Hospital.

* Doris Nelson, a chief nurse at Parkland Hospital.

* Floyd Riebe, a photographic technician who took pictures of the President's body at Bethesda Hospital.

* Aubrey Rike, an ambulance driver and funeral home worker in Dallas. Rike was called to Parkland Hospital soon after the shooting and assisted in placing the President's body in the casket. Rike could actually feel the edges of the large wound in the back of the head.

* Tom Robinson, the mortician who had the job of putting the President back together after the autopsy in case the family wanted to take one last look at him. Robinson, of course, had to spend a good part of his time handling the President's head. He saw and felt the large wound in the back.

* Jan Gail Rudnicki, a lab assistant at Bethesda Hospital who was present at the autopsy.

* Roy Stamps, a Fort Worth newsman who saw Kennedy lying in the limousine before he was moved into Parkland Hospital. Said Stamps, "I rushed up and saw Kennedy lying in the car.... The back of his head was gone" (5:362, emphasis added).

* Dr. David Stewart, Parkland Hospital.