HOWARD ROFFMAN’S “Presumed Guilty”
Dave Ratcliff runs one of the best and most important
websites with JFK Assassination information, including the complete text of a
number of books the most important of which is Howard Roffman’s “Presumed
Guilty,” which essentially exonerates Lee Harvey Oswald as the President’s
assassin.
Topics on the -
National Security States of America
Understanding Special Operations
The Kennedy Assassination
The Clandestine Operations Business
PRESUMED GUILTY - How and why the Warren Commission
framed Lee Harvey Oswald. A factual account based on the Commission's public
and private documents
by Howard Roffman ©1976 by A.S. Barnes and Co., Inc. ©1975 by Associated University Presses, Inc.ISBN 0-498-01933-0
by Howard Roffman ©1976 by A.S. Barnes and Co., Inc. ©1975 by Associated University Presses, Inc.ISBN 0-498-01933-0
From the inside front and back jacket
of the 1976 issue of "Presumed Guilty:"
of the 1976 issue of "Presumed Guilty:"
If Howard Roffman is right, and his careful documentation argues that he is, Lee Harvey Oswald could not have been the assassin of John F. Kennedy. He could not have been the gunman in the sixth floor window of the Texas School Book Depository building, as is shown by his close analysis of both the circumstantial evidence and the ballistics of the case.
The implications are serious indeed, and the Introduction deals with them extensively, besides assessing the contributions of other critics. The documentation here presented, extracted from the once-secret working papers of the Warren Commission, demonstrates conclusively that the Commission prejudged Oswald guilty and made use of only circumstantial evidence to bolster its assumption, while suppressing information that tended to undermine it.
Roffman in this book states the charge explicitly: "When the Commissioners decided in advance that the wrong man was the lone assassin, whatever their intentions, they protected the real assassins. Through their staff, they misinformed the American public and falsified history."
About the Author
Howard Roffman, now 23 [in 1976], was
born and raised in Philadelphia , Pa.
Mr. Roffman completed his undergraduate studies as a History
major at the University of Pennsylvania Holland
Law Center Gainesville , Fla.
The Alibi: Oswald's Actions after the Shots
The first person to see Oswald after the assassination was Dallas Patrolman Marion Baker, who had been riding a motorcycle behind the last camera car in the motorcade. As he reached a position some 60 to 80 feet past the turn fromMain
Street Houston
The first person to see Oswald after the assassination was Dallas Patrolman Marion Baker, who had been riding a motorcycle behind the last camera car in the motorcade. As he reached a position some 60 to 80 feet past the turn from
From the second floor, Truly continued up the steps to the
third; Baker, however, did not. The Report describes the situation: On the second floor landing there is a small
open area with a door at the east end. This door leads into a small vestibule,
and another door leads from the vestibule into the second-floor lunchroom. The
lunchroom door is usually open, but the first door is kept shut by a closing
mechanism on the door. This vestibule door is solid except for a small glass
window in the upper part of the door. As Baker reached the second floor, he was
about 20 feet from the vestibule door. He intended to continue around to his
left toward the stairway going up but through the window in the door he caught
a fleeting glimpse of a man walking in the vestibule toward the lunchroom.
(R151)
Baker ran into the vestibule with his pistol drawn and
stopped the man, who turned out to be Lee Harvey Oswald. Truly, realizing that
Baker was no longer following him, came down to the second floor and identified
Oswald as one of his employees. The two men then continued up the stairs toward
the Depository roof.
"In an effort to determine whether Oswald could have descended to the lunchroom from the sixth floor by the time Baker and Truly arrived," the Commission staged a timed reconstruction of events. The Commission knew that this encounter in the lunchroom such a short time after the shots could have provided Oswald with an alibi, thus exculpating him from involvement in the shooting. The reconstruction could not establish whether Oswald was at the sixth-floor window; it could, however, tell whether he was not. In the interest of determining the truth, it was vital that this reenactment be faithfully conducted, simulating the proper actions to the most accurate degree possible.
From beginning to end, the execution of the reconstruction was in disregard of the known actions of the participants, stretching - if not by intent, certainly in effect - the time consumed for Baker to have arrived on the second floor and shrinking the time for the "assassin's" descent. [1]
To begin with, the reconstruction of Baker's movements started at the wrong time. Baker testified that he revved up his motorcycle immediately after the last shot (3H247). However, Baker's time was clocked from a simulated first shot (3H252). To compare the time of the assassin's descent with that of Baker's ascent, the reconstruction obviously had to start after the last shot. Since the time span of the shots was, according to the Report, from 4.8 to over 7 seconds, the times obtained for Baker's movements are between 4.8 and 7 seconds in excess.
Although Baker testified that he was flanking the last "press" car in the motorcade (3H245), the record indicates that he was, in fact, flanking the last camera car -- the last of the convertibles carrying the various photographers, closer to the front of the procession than the vehicles carrying other press representatives. Baker said he was some 60 to 80 feet along
With 116 feet extra to travel in a corresponding added time of 4.8 to 7 seconds, Baker was able to reach the front entrance of the Depository in only 15 seconds during the reconstruction (7H593). Had the reenactment properly started at the time of the last shot, it follows that Baker could have reached the main entrance in 8 to 10 seconds. Did Baker actually consume so little time in getting to the Depository on November 22?
The Commission made no effort to answer this question, leaving an incomplete and unreliable record. Billy Lovelady, Bill Shelley, Joe Molina, and several other employees were standing on the steps of the Depository's main entrance during the assassination. Lovelady and Shelley testified that another employee, Gloria Calvery, ran up to them and stated that the President had been shot; the three of them began to run west toward the parking lot, at which time they saw Truly and a police officer run into the Depository (6H329-31, 339). This story is contradicted by Molina, who contended that Truly (he did not notice Baker) ran into the main entrance before Gloria Calvery arrived (6H372). Mrs. Calvery was not called to testify, and the one statement by her to the FBI does not address this issue. From her position just east of the Stemmons Freeway sign on the north side of Elm (22H638), it does not seem likely that she could have made the 150-foot run to the main entrance in only 15 seconds. Yet, adding to this confusion is an affidavit that Shelly executed for the Dallas Police on
While Molina felt that Truly ran into the Depository some 20 to 30 seconds after the shots (6H372), Lovelady and Shelley estimated that as much as three minutes had elapsed (6H329, 339). When Counsel Joe Ball cautioned Lovelady that "three minutes is a long time," Lovelady partially retracted because he did not have a watch then and could not be exact (6H339). Supporting Molina's estimate, Roy Truly told the Secret Service in December 1963 that Baker made his way to the front entrance "almost immediately" (CD87, Secret Service Control No. 491); almost a year later Truly said on a CBS News Special that Baker's arrival "was just a matter of seconds after the third shot."[2]
I was able to resolve the issue concerning Baker's arrival at the Depository through evidence strangely absent from the Commission's record. Malcolm Couch, riding in the last camera car (Camera Car 3), took some very important motion-picture footage immediately after the shots. Couch, whose car was almost at the intersection of Elm and
The first portion of the Couch film depicts the crowds dispersing along the island at the northwest corner of Elm and
Thus, photographic evidence known to, but never sought by, the Commission proves that Officer Baker had parked and dismounted his motorcycle within 10 seconds after the shots. Corroborative evidence is found in the testimony of Bob Jackson, also riding in Camera Car 3.
During the Baker-Truly reconstructions, Baker reached the second floor in one minute and 30 seconds on the first attempt and one minute, 15 seconds on the second (3H252). Since Baker's simulated movements up to the time he reached the main entrance consumed 15 seconds (7H593), the actions subsequent to that must have been reenacted in a span of one minute to about 75 seconds. However, since Baker actually reached the main entrance within 10 seconds on November 22, the reconstructed time is cut by at least five seconds. Further reductions are in order.
Officer Baker described the manner in which he simulated his movements subsequent to dismounting his motorcycle: From the time I got off the motorcycle we walked the first time and then we kind of run the second time from the motorcycle on into the building. (3H253)
Baker neither walked nor "kind of" ran to the
Depository entrance on November 22. From his own description, he surveyed the
scene as he was parking his cycle, and then "ran straight to"
the main entrance (3H248-249). Billy Lovelady also swore that Baker was running (6H339).
However, Truly provided the most graphic description of Baker's apparent
"mad dash" to the building: I saw a young motorcycle
policeman run up to the building, up the steps to the entrance of our
building. He ran right by me. And he was pushing people out of the
way. He pushed a number of people out of the way before he got to me. I saw him
coming through, I believe. As he ran up the stairway -- I mean up the
steps, I was almost to the steps, and I ran up and caught up with
him. (3H221; emphasis added)
Thus, walking through this part of the
reconstruction was, as Harold Weisberg aptly termed it, pure fakery,
unnecessarily and unfaithfully burdening Baker's time.[5] The
Report, on the other hand, assures us that the time on November 22 would
actually have been longer, because "no allowance was made for the
special conditions which existed on the day of the assassination -- possible
delayed reaction to the shot, jostling with the crowd of people on the steps
and scanning the area along Elm Street and the Parkway" (R152-53). Had the
Commission directed any significant effort to obtaining as many contemporaneous
pictures as possible -- including those taken by Couch -- it could not have
engaged in such excuse-making. Even at that, how could the Commission dare go
to all the efforts of staging a reconstruction and then admit -- to its own
advantage -- that it deliberately failed to simulate actions? As was discussed
in chapter 1, this child's play was inexcusable as an effort bearing such
weight in deciding Oswald's guilt. The Couch film eliminates the possibility
that the factors mentioned in the Report could have slowed Baker down. As for
"jostling with the crowd of people on the steps," the Report
neglected to mention other disproof of this as a slowing factor. As Truly
testified, when the officer and I ran in, we were shouldering people aside in
front of the building, so we possibly were slowed a little bit more coming in
than we were when he and I came in on March 20 (date of the
reconstruction). I don't believe so. But it wouldn't be enough to matter
there. (3H228; emphasis added)
Once in the building during the
reconstruction, the two men proceeded to the elevators "at a kind of trot
. . . it wasn't a real fast run, an open run. It was more of a trot, kind
of" (3H253). This, again, was not an accurate simulation of the real
actions. While Truly admitted that the reconstruction pace across the first
floor was "about" the same as that of November 22, he described the
former as a trot and the latter as "a little more than a trot"
(3H228). Baker himself said that once through the door, he and Truly "kind
of ran, not real fast but, you know, a good trot" (3H249), not the
"kind of trot" he described during the reconstruction. A swinging
door at the end of the lobby in the main entrance was jammed because the bolt
had been stuck. Apparently, the pace on November 22 was of sufficient speed for
Truly to bang right into this door and Baker to subsequently collide with Truly
in the instant before the door was forced open (3H222). Likewise, Eddie Piper,
a first-floor witness, had seen the two men run into the building,
yell up for an elevator, and "take off" up the stairs (6H385).
In walking through part of the reconstruction, which should have been conducted running and was begun at least five seconds early, Baker and Truly managed to arrive on the second floor in one minute, 30 seconds. In the reconstruction, equally begun too early but staged at a pace closer to, though not simulating that of November 22, the time narrowed to a minute and 15 seconds. While Baker and Truly felt that the reconstructed times were minimums (3H228, 253), it would seem that the opposite was true.
Subtracting the extra seconds tacked on by including the
time span of the shots reduces even the maximum time to one minute, 25 seconds.
The understandably hurried pace of November 22 as manifested in all the
evidence would indicate that Truly and Baker reached the second floor in under
85 seconds, and the Couch film introduces the possibility that it may have
taken as little as 70 seconds, since Baker parked and abandoned his motorcycle
within ten seconds of the last shot.
The second part of the reconstruction was supposed to have simulated the "assassin's" movements from the sixth-floor window down to the second-floor lunchroom. Here the figurative lead weights tied to Baker and Truly during the reconstruction of their movements are exchanged for figurative roller skates, to shorten the time of the "assassin's" descent.
Secret Service Agent John Howlett stood in for the "assassin." He executed an affidavit for the Commission in which he described his actions: I carried a rifle from the southeast corner of the sixth floor northernly along the east aisle to the northern corner, then westernly [sic] along the north wall past the elevators to the northwest corner. There I placed the rifle on the floor. I then entered the stairwell, walked down the stairway to the second floor landing, and then into the lunchroom. (7H592)
This test was done twice. At a "normal walk" it
took one minute and 18 seconds; at a "fast walk," one minute, 14
seconds (3H254). This reconstruction also suffered from most serious
ommissions.[sic]
The "assassin" could not just have walked away from his window as Howlett apparently did. If the gunman fired the last shot from the Carcano as the official theory demands, a minimum time of 2.3 seconds after the last shot must be added to the reconstructed time since the cartridge case from that shot had to be ejected - an operation that involves working the rifle bolt. Furthermore, witnesses recalled that the gunman had been in no hurry to leave his window (2H159; 3H144).
There were also physical obstructions that prevented immediate evacuation of the area. Commission Exhibit 734 shows that some stacks of boxes nearest to the "assassin's" window did not extend far enough toward the east wall of the building to have blocked off the window there completely. However, as Commission Exhibits 723 and 726 clearly show, other columns of boxes were situated behind the first stacks; these formed a wall that had no openings large enough for a man to penetrate without contortion. Deputy Sheriff Luke Mooney discovered three cartridge cases by this window. He had to squeeze "between these two stacks of boxes, I had to turn myself sideways to get in there" (3H285). The gunman would have had to squeeze through these stacks of boxes while carrying a 40-inch, 8-pound rifle. Considering these details, we must add at least six or seven seconds to the Commission's time to allow for the various necessary factors that would slow departure from the window.
To simulate the hiding of the rifle, Howlett "leaned over as if he were putting a rifle there [near the stair landing at the northwest corner of the sixth floor]" (3H253). The Commission did not do justice to its putative assassin who, as the photographs reveal, took meticulous care in concealing his weapon. The mere act of gaining access to the immediate area in which the rifle was hidden required time. This is what Deputy Sheriff Eugene Boone went through before he discovered the rifle: As I got to the west wall, there were a row of windows there, and a slight space between some boxes and the wall. I squeezed through them. . . . I caught a glimpse of the rifle, stuffed down between two rows of boxes with another box or so pulled over the top of it. (3H293)
Luke Mooney "had to get around to the right angle"
before he could see the rifle (3H298). Likewise, Deputy Constable Seymour
Weitzman reported that "it was covered with boxes. It was very well
protected as far as the naked eye" (7H107). Another Deputy Sheriff, Roger
Craig, recalled that the ends of the rows between which the rifle had been
pushed were closed off by boxes, so that one could not see through them
(6H269).
Photographs of the area in which the rifle was found (e.g., CE 719), and a bird's-eye view of the hidden rifle itself (e.g., CE 517), corroborate what these men have described and add other information. CE 719 shows that the rifle was found amid clusters of boxes that did not permit easy access. CE 517, in particular, is very revealing. It shows that the rifle had been pushed upright on its side between two rows of boxes that partially overlapped on top, thus eliminating the possibility that the rifle had merely been dropped down between the stacks. CE 517 also demonstrates that both ends of the rows of boxes were partially sealed off by other boxes, indicating a possibility never pursued by the Commission - namely, that boxes had to be moved to gain access to the weapon. When interviewed by CBS News, Seymour Weitzman inadvertently admitted this fact: I'll be very frank with you. I stumbled over it two times, not knowing it was there. . . . And Mr. Bo(o)ne [sic] was climbing on top, and I was down on my knees looking, and I moved a box, and he moved a carton, and there it was. And he in turn hollered that we had found a rifle.[6]
Hence, the concealment of the rifle
required much maneuvering. In addition to squeezing in between boxes, the
gunman had to move certain cartons filled with books. The rifle itself had been
very carefully placed in position. Doubtless this would have added at
least 15, perhaps 20, seconds to the reconstructed time even if the
hiding place had been chosen in advance (of which there is no evidence
either way).
If we take the Commission's minimum time of one minute, 14 seconds (giving the advantage to the official story) and add the additional six or seven seconds needed just to evacuate the immediate area of the window, plus the 15 to 20 seconds more for hiding the rifle, we find that it would have taken at least a minute and 35 seconds to a minute and 41 seconds for a sixth-floor gunman to have reached the second-floor lunchroom, had all his maneuvers been planned in advance. Had Oswald been the assassin, he would have arrived in the lunchroom at least five to eleven seconds after Baker reached the second floor, even if Baker took the longest time obtainable for his ascent -- a minute, 30 seconds. Had Baker ascended in 70 seconds -- as he easily could have -- he would have arrived at least 25 seconds before Oswald. Either case removes the possibility that Oswald descended from the sixth floor, for on November 22 he had unquestionably arrived in the lunchroom before Baker.
The circumstances surrounding the lunchroom encounter indicate that Oswald entered the lunchroom not by the vestibule door from without, as he would have had he descended from the sixth floor, but through a hallway leading into the vestibule. The outer vestibule door is closed automatically by a closing mechanism on the door (7H591). When Truly arrived on the second floor, he did not see Oswald entering the vestibule (R151). For the Commission's case to be valid, Oswald must have entered the vestibule through the first door before Truly arrived. Baker reached the second floor immediately after Truly and caught a fleeting glimpse of Oswald in the vestibule through a small window in the outer door. Although Baker said the vestibule door "might have been, you know, closing and almost shut at that time" (3H255), it is dubious that he could have distinguished whether the door was fully or "almost" closed.
Baker's and Truly's observations are not at all consistent with Oswald's having entered the vestibule through the first door. Had Oswald done this, he could have been inside the lunchroom well before the automatic mechanism closed the vestibule door. Truly's testimony that he saw no one entering the vestibule indicates either that Oswald was already in the vestibule at this time or was approaching it from another source. However, had Oswald already entered the vestibule when Truly arrived on the second floor, it is doubtful that he would have remained there long enough for Baker to see him seconds later. Likewise, the fact that neither man saw the mechanically closed door in motion is cogent evidence that Oswald did not enter the vestibule through that door.
One of the crucial aspects of Baker's story is his position at the time he caught a "fleeting glimpse" of a man in the vestibule. Baker marked this position during his testimony as having been immediately adjacent to the stairs at the northwest corner of the building (3H256; CE 497). "I was just stepping out on to the second floor when I caught this glimpse of this man through this doorway," said Baker.
It should be noted that the Report never mentions Baker's position at the time he saw Oswald in the vestibule (R149-51). Instead, it prints a floor plan of the second floor and notes Baker's position "when he observed Oswald in lunchroom" (R150). This location, as indicated in the Report, was immediately outside the vestibule door (see CE 1118).
The reader of the Report is left with the impression that
Baker saw Oswald in the vestibule as well from this position. However, Baker
testified explicitly that he first caught a glimpse of the man in the vestibule
from the stairs and, upon running to the vestibule door, saw Oswald in the
lunchroom (3H256). The Report's failure to point out Baker's position is significant.
Had Oswald descended from the sixth floor, his path through the vestibule into the lunchroom would have been confined to the north wall of the vestibule. Yet the line of sight from Baker's position at the steps does not include any area near the north wall. From the steps, Baker could have seen only one area in the vestibule -- the southeast portion. The only way Oswald could have been in this area on his way to the lunchroom is if he entered the vestibule through the southernmost door, as the previously cited testimony indicates he did.
Oswald could not have entered the vestibule in this manner had he just descended from the sixth floor. The only way he could have gotten to the southern door is from the first floor up through either a large office space or an adjacent corridor. As the Report concedes, Oswald told police he had eaten his lunch on the first floor and gone up to the second to purchase a coke when he encountered an officer (R182).
Thus, Oswald had an alibi. Had he been the sixth-floor gunman, he would have arrived at the lunchroom at least 5 seconds after Baker did, probably more. It is extremely doubtful that he could have entered the vestibule through the first door without Baker's or Truly's having seen the door in motion. Oswald's position in the vestibule when seen by Baker was consistent only with his having come up from the first floor as he told the police.
Oswald could not have been the assassin.
The Commission had great difficulty with facts, for none supported the ultimate conclusions. Instead, it found comfort and security in intangibles that usually had no bearing on the actual evidence. Amateur psychology seems to have been one of the Commission's favorite sciences, approached with the predisposition that Oswald was a murderer. This was manifested in the Report's lengthy chapter, "Lee Harvey Oswald: Background and Possible Motives" (R375-424).
To lend credibility to its otherwise incredible conclusion that Oswald was the assassin, the Commission accused Oswald of yet another assassination attempt -- a shot fired at right-wing Maj. Gen. Edwin Walker on
Having just torn open the head of the President of the
Mr. Belin: Did you see any expression
on his face? Or weren't you paying attention?
Mr. Truly: He didn't seem to be excited or overly afraid or anything. He might have been a little startled, like I might have been if someone confronted me. But I cannot recall any change in expression of any kind on his face. (3H225)
Mr. Truly: He didn't seem to be excited or overly afraid or anything. He might have been a little startled, like I might have been if someone confronted me. But I cannot recall any change in expression of any kind on his face. (3H225)
Officer Baker was more explicit under similar questioning:
Rep. Boggs: When you saw him [Oswald] .
. ., was he out of breath, did he appear to have been running or what?
Mr. Baker: It didn't appear that to me. He appeared normal you know.
Rep. Boggs: Was he calm and collected?
Mr. Baker: Yes, sir. He never did say a word or nothing. In fact, he didn't change his expression one bit.
Mr. Belin: Did he flinch in anyway when you put the gun up . . .?
Mr. Baker: No, sir. (3H252)
Mr. Baker: It didn't appear that to me. He appeared normal you know.
Rep. Boggs: Was he calm and collected?
Mr. Baker: Yes, sir. He never did say a word or nothing. In fact, he didn't change his expression one bit.
Mr. Belin: Did he flinch in anyway when you put the gun up . . .?
Mr. Baker: No, sir. (3H252)
Sen. Cooper: He did not show any
evidence of any emotion?
Mr. Baker: No, sir. (3H263)
Mr. Baker: No, sir. (3H263)
This "calm and collected" "assassin"
proceeded to buy himself a coke and at his normal "very slow pace,"
was then observed by Depository employee Mrs. Robert Reid walking through the
office space on the second floor on his way down to the first floor (3H279).
Presumably he finished his coke on the first floor. Documents in the
Commission's files (but omitted from the Report, which assumes Oswald made an
immediate get-away) indicate very strongly that, at the main entrance after the
shots, Oswald directed two newsmen to the Depository phones (CD354).
According to the evidence credited by the Commission, Oswald was not such a cool cucumber after his first assassination attempt. Here the source of the Commission's information was Oswald's wife, Marina, and his once close "friends," George and Jeanne De Mohrenschildt. The incident in question is described in the Report as follows:
The De Mohrenschildts
came to Oswald's apartment on Neely Street for the first time on the evening of
April 13, 1963 (three days after the Walker incident), apparently to bring an
Easter gift for the Oswald child. Mrs. De Mohrenschildt then told her husband,
in the presence of the Oswalds, that there was a rifle in the closet. Mrs. De
Mohrenschildt testified that "George, of course, with his sense of humor
-- Walker was shot at a few days ago, within that time. He said, `Did you take
a pot shot at Walker
At that point, Mr. De Mohrenschildt testified, Oswald
"sort of shriveled, you see, when I asked this question . . . made a
peculiar face . . . (and) changed the expression on his face" and remarked
that he did target-shooting. Marina Oswald testified that the De Mohrenschildts
came to visit a few days after the Walker
De Mohrenschildt further testified that his
"joking" remark "had an effect on" Oswald, making him
"very, very uncomfortable" (9H249-50). In another section, the Report
adds that Oswald "was visibly shaken" by the remark (R274).
The Commission certainly chose a paradoxical assassin. We are asked to believe, according to the Commission, that Oswald was guilty of attacking both Walker and Kennedy. Yet, this man who officially became markedly upset when jokingly confronted with his attempt to kill Walker did not even flinch when a policeman put a gun to his stomach immediately after he murdered the President!
The Commission begged for the charge of being ludicrous in drawing its conclusions relevant to Oswald and the assassination; it insulted common sense and intelligence when it asked that those conclusions be accepted and believed.
The lunchroom encounter was Oswald's alibi; it proved that he could not have been at the sixth-floor window during the shots.
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