Senator COOPER. May I ask a question there--just to clarify? Did you
say that in this article that Life said that the late President had
turned around and was facing the Book Depository Building when the shot
was fired?
Mr. LANE. Yes, Senator. The trouble with that theory, however, which
was enunciated by Life, and from where they secured it I do not
know, but they certainly were in Dallas very much in evidence on the
scene--was that the week prior to then Life magazine itself printed
the stills of the motion pictures, and in those stills, with Life's
own captions, it was quite plain that the President was looking almost
completely forward, just slightly to the right, but almost forward, and
certainly not turned around when the first shot was fired. And so the
stills printed in Life's own publication a week before they enunciated
this theory proved that the Life theory was false.
In addition to this, persons present on the scene, such witnesses as
Mrs. Connally and the Governor of Texas, indicated that the President
was looking almost straight ahead. And I believe that Mrs. Connally
stated that she had just made a statement to the President, tragically
enough, something about, "You cannot say the people of Dallas have not
given you a warm welcome today," and he was about to respond when the
first bullet struck him.
In order for the prosecution to remain with the theory in the light
of the new evidence that Oswald was the assassin and he acted alone,
something would have to give, and it became plain that the third try
would have to result in a new examination of the medical testimony.
Mr. Dudman stated that the doctors at Parkland Hospital, who had, of
course, this vital evidence to offer, were never questioned about the
vital evidence by the FBI or by the Secret Service, and that it was not
until after an autopsy had been performed at Bethesda, that two Secret
Service agents, armed with that report, journeyed down to the Parkland
Hospital and talked to the doctors, for the purpose of explaining to
them that the new medical testimony and evidence indicated they were
all in error at the outset. And, eventually, that was the position
agreed to by the physicians, that they all had been in error when they
stated that it was an entrance wound in the throat.
Physicians seem to agree that a short period of time after death, as
a result of the deterioration of tissue, it is much more difficult to
examine wounds to determine if they are entrance wounds or exit wounds.
In addition to this, according to Mr. Dudman in the Post Dispatch
there had been an operation performed on what the doctors thought then
was an entrance wound; therefore, it would seem altering the wound in
the throat so that it would probably be more difficult to determine
if it were an entrance or an exit wound, after the operation had been
completed.
However, I do not know, of course, what is in the autopsy report--very
likely you have seen that report--but portions of it, whether
accurately or inaccurately, have been leaked to the public through
the press. And the portion which has been leaked to the press, to the
public through the press, in reference to the wound in the President's
throat, indicated that the bullet struck the back of the President's
head, and either a fragment of the bullet or a fragment of bone from
the President's head exited at the throat.
If this were so, while it could explain perhaps the wound in the
throat, it would be difficult to understand why this was not apparent
to the doctors in the Parkland Hospital, particularly in view of the
fact that it would indicate that the path of the bullet ran from the
top of the head down to the throat, not from the throat down to the
back of the chest, a very different path entirely.
And since Dr. Perry indicated that he inserted a tube into the
President's throat following the bullet wound, it would be difficult to
understand how he was not aware of the path of the bullet, when it was
absolutely in the opposite direction from the one he thought it was in
when he inserted the tube.
Most remarkable of all, though, is that if the bullet entered the top
of the head, and a portion of it or a portion of bone exited from the
throat, the collapse of the lungs and the frothing of air at the throat
are both indications of a punctured lung--it would be difficult to
explain by that particular bullet's path.
I think that an openminded investigating and prosecuting agency would
have found, at the outset, in view of the medical evidence available
at the outset, that the President was shot from the front while
facing slightly to the right, and after passing the book depository
building--an openminded investigating body in Dallas, the district
attorney's office or the police, or others who were associated in that
investigation, might have considered abandoning their theory that
Oswald was the assassin and that he acted alone, and might have been
led by the factual data to investigate in other areas as well--clearly
something that they did not do.
I have been informed by reporters, for example, that--reporters from
foreign countries covering the trial, that some of them were very
concerned about the fact that they would now not be able to leave
Dallas, that clearly the airports would be closed, there would be
roadblocks placed on many of the streets, the trains would be stopped
or searched, in order that the assassin or those who assisted him,
or those who assisted the assassins, might be prevented from readily
leaving the entire area.
I am informed by the reporters in the area that there were no such
roadblocks, that planes continued to leave, trains continued to leave,
and that the prosecution continued with its theory that Oswald was the
assassin, that he acted alone, and they had secured his arrest, and
there was nothing more to be done other than to prove as conclusively
as possible, utilizing the press as we know, and the television, and
the radio media for that purpose.
And while I am on this question, I wonder if I might ask the Commission
to give consideration to--although I don't believe that it is
present in any of the six panels which have been established by the
Commission--but to give consideration nevertheless to the 48 hours
in which Oswald was in custody, in reference to what happened to his
rights as an American citizen, charged with a crime in this country.
The statement by the National Board of the American Civil Liberties
Union, that had Oswald lived he could not have secured a fair trial
anywhere in this country.
The CHAIRMAN. You may be sure, Mr. Lane, that that will be given most
serious consideration by the Commission, and the Commission has already
appointed as an act in that direction the President of the American
Bar Association, with such help as he may wish to have, to make an
investigation of that very thing. I assure you it will be done by the
Commission.
Mr. LANE. Getting back to the evidence, Mr. Chief Justice, the
spectator closest to President Kennedy, a Mrs. Hill, who was a
substitute teacher in the Dallas public school system, stated to me
that she was in her view the closest spectator to the President, and
was standing alongside a Mary Moorman, who resides in Dallas.
Mr. RANKIN. Do you have the date of this interview, Mr. Lane?
Mr. LANE. It was within the last week. She stated to me that she was
the closest spectator to the President, she and her friend, when the
President was struck by a bullet. She said that she heard some four to
six shots fired.
Now, she was standing on the grass across the--across Elm Street,
across from the Texas Book Depository Building. She said that in
her--it is her feeling that all of the shots, the four to six shots,
came from the grassy knoll near the triple overpass which was at that
time directly in front and slightly to the right of the Presidential
limousine, and that in her view none of the shots were fired from the
Book Depository Building which was directly across the street from her,
and which was to the rear of the Presidential limousine.
She said further that after the last shot was fired, she saw a man run
from behind the general area of a concrete facade on that grassy knoll,
and that he ran on to the triple overpass.
She told me that standing alongside of her was Mary Moorman, who took
a picture of the President just a brief moment before the first shot
was fired, and that agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation took
the film from Miss Moorman, and gave her a receipt, which she still has
in her possession, but that she has not been able to see the picture,
and that it is possible that the picture included the entire Book
Depository Building, taken just precisely a second or less before the
shots were fired.
Tom Wicker, who is a member of the New York Times White House staff,
who was the only New York Times reporter in Dallas when the President
was shot, stated in an article which appeared in the Saturday Review,
on January 11, 1964, "As we came out of the overpass, I saw a
motorcycle policeman drive over the curb, cross an open area, a few
feet up a railroad bank, dismount, and start scrambling up the bank."
Ronnie Dugger, who is the editor of the Texas Observer, a statewide
publication in Texas, stated in his publication on November 29, 1963,
and later stated to me in two different interviews material of the same
nature.