MARK LANE SLAMS JARREN REPORT by George Lavan
Mark Lane, Chaiman of the Citizens! Committee of Inquiry and the ian chosen by Lee Oswald's mother to represent her son, has issued a 28=-page comment on the Warren Commission's report on the assassination of Kennedy, Tt-46 a scathing indictment of thet body's composition end procedure. it contains numerous refutations of points accepted by the Commission and asserts that many important facts and questions by Lane based on them had been ignored, left unanswered or dealt with dishonestly. Here are some of the points made by Lene:
(1) "Were Oswald permitted to live to face -trial, not « single member of the Commission would be permitted to serve as a juror...All seven members have an association with the government, which is in this case the prosecutin- agency,”
(2) "Oswald's family was denied the right to secure counsel to represent his interests before the Commission; cross-ex-mination on hehalf of the accused was dispensed with... No one representing Oswald was permitted to present an effirmative defence on his behalf, and although trials in America are open and public, this one trial...was conducted behind closed deors and the testimony marked 'top secret,'"
(3) "The Commission relied primarily of the FBI, the US Secret Service and the Dallas police for information. Representatives of those agencies sought to have witnessen alter their statements...into statements which more comfortably fit the immediate premise of those agencies that Oswald was the lone assassin,"
(4) "No direct question was ever asked of Ruby in reference to his attendance at such a meeting by the Commission” (with policemen Tippit amd Bernard Weissman, whe had pleaceg the anti-Kennedy advert in the Dallas paper - Lene had told the Commission he had information such a meeting occurred).
(5) The Commission did not secure the testimony of a woman who told Lane that she had witnessed Tippit's killing, that the killer was short and heavy, and that she was ordered by Dallas police not to tell anyone about What she had seen, The Commission evaded by stating that no such women was interviewed by the FBI (not by the Dellas police as Lane said),
(6) Oswald was questioned repeatedly over « 49-hour periodseyet the Commission accepts the claim that none of these agents took notes and that there were no stenosraphic or tape reonrdings . “One's credulity is strained when one contemplates agents of the FBI, Secret Service and Dallas police involved in conducting the most important investigation in the history of these agencies and failing to make a record of the ansrersof the defendant," Lene comments.
(7) @wo witnesses claim to have seen Oswald with the package all ged to have contained the death rifle. Broken dom, the rifle's largest part was 34.8 inches lone. One witness insisted the packaze was two feet lone, The other shown the paper bag the Commission says the rifle was carried in, stated that the packase Oswald carried "definitely wasn't that lonc.”
(6) Oswald's palmprint allegedly found on the rifle is suspect. At 11.45 Palte; On the day of Kennedy's assassination the rifle was released to the FBI and sent to Washington. WAL agents there could find no identifiable prints on it. It was-only asserted subsequently, by the Dallas police that before turning the rifle over to the FBI they had fount. a palaprint on the understeck of the rifie and “lifted it of f" by a technique which left me trace,