Circumstances of the assassination of president john f. Kennedy. To dealy plaza to recreate that fatal motorcade ride. Believing rifle tests conducted by the Warren Commission were less than adequate, we conducted a test. We found new evidence and film that the killer had more time to get the shots off. And we concluded that beyond reasonable doubt, oswald was at least one of the killers. But was there more than one . Interviewedght we eyewitnesses that said all the shots came from the School Book Depository. We tested, more exhaustively than did the Warren Commission, the controversial single bullet theory. We found that one bullet could indeed have wondered the president and governor connolly. Dr. Breakhe autopsy saye years of silence to that he has reexamines the president s body and so has no doubts that all shots came from behind. There was no second gunman. But even as the only gunman, was oswald, as the Warren Commission reports, a lone gunman . We found that a partial description of the assassin broadcast on police radio could have accounted for a Police Officer stopping oswald. Was stranget ruby and given to hitting first and asking questions afterward. No one who knew him thought he could keep his secret very long. Theories of new orleans District Attorney jim garrison. They remain largely unsupported. That, for now,d no Conspiracy Theory has been proven. Tonight, we turn from the assassination to the Warren Commission itself. Having found that the conclusion still stand up, we now ask our fourth and last fundamental question. Why doesnt america believe the warren report . This is a cbs news inquiry. Warren reort port. Tonight, my colleague dan rather and i will break this fundamental question into subsidiary questions. In the first part of the broadcasts, we will ask, should america believe the warned report. Warren the second question, should america believe it . This final broadcast will be different. The questions will we will ask tonight, we will only ask. Tonights answers will not be ours but yours. Mr. Rather we will hear first from the man who is responsible for the question being asked. Mark lane. Hje was the gadfly of the Warren Commission. He asks to be on the commission but was refused. He conducted his own investigation. He has lectured all over the world on his own theories. Was one basic conclusion that the commission reached that cannot be supported by the facts. Fact that ruby killed oswald. That happened on television. It would be hard to deny that. What the commission was thinking and doing is still hidden from us. The minutes of the Commission Meetings are locked in the national archives. Evidenceamounts of the which were directly related to the information we should have are also locked up in the archives. No one can see that. The photographs and xrays of the president s body taken at , which could result the questions of conspiracy, cannot be seen by anyone today. Not one member of the commission ever saw the most Important Documents in the case, those photographs and xrays. I think the villain was the desire of government officials to be nice. To see to its that nothing would upset the American People. That the apathy that has seized is for all of these years be able to remain. The American People would have been upset, surely, if they were told there was a conspiracy that took the life of your president. Lane, whote mr. Accuses the commission with playing fast and loose with the evidence, is not always allowed facts to get in the way of his own theories. Ofsays the statements eyewitnesses tended to confirm the likelihood that they shot came from the right and not from the rear. He quotes a photographer and another eyewitness as giving testimony that would support the idea of a killer on the grassy no knoll. Entirelys what this is sure that all of the shots came from behind. Some critics of the warren report have taken your testimony to indicate that you thought the shots came from behind the fence over there. What about that . It was not a number of critics. It was one critic. Mark klane. Was likely to have positively identified what i thought was this. I could not examine it. So, he has added his interpretation to what i said. Consequently thats where the story comes from. No shots came from up there. Perhaps the most charitable is that the Defense Attorneys primary duty is not to abstract truth, but to his claim. There is a less partisan and therefore more disturbing critique of the Warren Commission report. The most influential attacks on the Warren Commission is the books inquest by edward jay epstein. It began as a thesis in political science. He wanted to know how the Warren Commission went about defining the crime of the century. He interviewed commission members. Some of the top investigators. The pattern that began to emerge disturbed him. There are three levels of complaints. At the same time, its very nature is the political problem. The second level might be called the organizational level. It was organized in a way that prevented it from finding facts. Here, my findings were that by using a parttime staff and by the commission detaching itself from the investigation in other words not actively participating in the investigation it raised problems as to whether the investigation went deep enough. If there was evidence of conspiracy, it would in fact have found it. The third level of criticism concerning the evidence itself involved when the Warren Commission was confronted with a complex problem. For example, the contradiction between the fbi is reporting on the autopsy and the autopsy report they had and how they felt this problem was simply glossed over. This of course brought up questions. One of the men mr. Epstein interviewed is arlen specter, now the District Attorney of philadelphia. He was one of the principal investigators of the Warren Commission in 1964, charged with ascertaining the basic facts of the commission. I would say after prosecuting a great many cases, seldom would you find one is persuasive that laws walled was the assassin and in fact the lone assassin. We convict people every day here in city hall. At times, the Death Penalty is imposed. The case does fit together. In separate interviews, we asked epstein and specter to ascertain how badly or well the Warren Commission performed its report. Be ant of the job was to accomplice of the government. Men who let their name to report. It would also have two purposes. Rumors,ld lay conspiracy theories. Is that there is absolutely no foundation for that type of charge. When the president selected the commissioners, he chose men of unblemished reputation and very high standing. The chief justice of the Supreme Court of the United States would have no reason whatsoever to be expedient for political truth. The same thing was true of the staff members. The time came to select people for counsel, and were chosen from various parts of the United States who had no connection with government. Rumors involving the fbi. Memorandaa number of where the secretary of the thesury was in charge of secret service and assured that findings would not impair the efficiency or the morale of the secret service. And again with the fbi, a possible connection between oswald. By that i do not mean anything sinister. To investigate the rumors. The fbi conducted the basic line of investigation. The commission used its independent judgment wherever the fbi or secret service was involved, so they would not investigate themselves on the werects where they directly involved. I think the commission showed its independence in that regard by criticizing the fbi. By criticizing the secret service wherever the facts war and 10 on every subject where the federal bureau of investigation had contact with the area of investigation with which i was intimately connected, i was fully satisfied with their thoroughness and competence and integrity. Despite mr. Specters defense, it is the opinion of cbs news that the role of the fbi and secret service in the assassination and its aftermath has been less than glorious. To some extent the performance of these agencies weakens the credibility of the worn report. What they did wrong before the assassination, we need look no further than the report itself. It notes that secret Service Agents assigned to protect the president were thinking beer and liquor into the early hours of the morning. No search had been made of buildings along the route. Of thee procedures secret service designed to identify and protect against persons considered serious threats to the president were not adequate prior to the assassination. That is the secret service should have known about Lee Harvey Oswald. But, the report goes on to point out that if the secret service did not know about him, the fbi did. It did not see fit to mention its existence to the secret service. Issued a mildly phrased but devastating rebuke to the fbi charging that it took an unduly restrictive view. Knowing what the fbi knew about oswald, the report says that an alert agency should have listed him as a potential menace to the president. After the assassination, they relied heavy they relied heavily on these two agencies. We know that some of the tests conducted by them for the Warren Commission were unsatisfactory. In the first of these broadcasts, we demonstrated that the problem of oswald heading a target from a 60 foot high perch, the fbi conducted its tests on a fixed target from 30 feet. Similarly, cbs news could , feetate the conditions not beyond the capability of the fbi. Thee is also the case of bullet which the commission thought wounded both the president and governor connally. Report insisted that it could not of hit both men. On theve been found president s stretcher. But one of the permanent confusion surrounding bullet must be charged to the cavalier attitude of agents who hope the fbi and secret service of parkland hospital. He dislodged a spent shell. Mr. Wright describes what happened then. I would get a hold of either the secret service or the fbi and turn the bullet over to them. Wouldnt have come through my channels. I contacted the fbi and they said they were not interested because it was not their responsibility to make an investigation. So i got a hold of the secret service. They didnt seem interested either. So i went back. I picked up the bullet and put it in my pocket. I carried some 3040 minutes. I gave it to a secret service man who was guarding the main door. Wright, did the secret Service Agent market in anyway . No sir. What did he do . Lex put it in his pocket. Name or whok your you were . Any question at all about that . No, sir. How did the conversation end. I was told this was a bullet. He took it and looked at it and said ok. Little to praise in such treatment by the fbi and the secret service, but perhaps the most important single piece of evidence in the case. The Warren Commission seriously compromised itself by allowing the secret service, the fbi, and the cia to investigate questions involving their own actions. The commission had to acknowledge that oswalds book contained information about james hosta e. Explanation was that he wanted to let him know were oswald was staying. Maria copy down the license plate. Between the question of a link between the killer and the fbi was legitimate. Thisit did was to accept exclusive affidavit from fbi officials that oswald was never employed in any capacity by the fbi. The Commission Says it also checked the fbis own files but mentions no other investigation. It follows the sink here is procedure with the cia, taking the word of top cia officials that oswald had no connection with that agency either. Thecommission came to sweeping conclusion that there was absolutely no type of informant or undercover relationship between an agency of the u. S. Government and Lee Harvey Oswald at any time. Arguesre the worn report persuasively that the difficulty of proving a negative, in that case that he was not a member of the conspiracy. You will remember that it hedged its conclusion, saying only there was no evidence of a conspiracy. Yet the commission had no hesitation in asserting another farreaching negative, that oswald was not involved in any agency of the u. S. Government ever. Isalds mother marguerite always maintained that her son was a government agent. She favors the cia. And that he was innocent of the assassination. What proof do, you have it your son was an agent of this government . Not proof. I think you there are very strong questions. The Warren Commission members themselves want us to believe that Lee Harvey Oswald went to rusher to russia as a defector. That he got out of the marine corps three years before his time was up. This is documented. This is what they tell the American People. They going to great detail that Lee Harvey Oswald got out of the corps because his mother was an accident, which was the truth. When he came home he stayed with his mother for three days. And then he left for russia. And so this is supposed to be cut and dried. But when you read the report and you know the case, then you see where the Warren Commission says that Lee Harvey Oswald was given a passport by the state ,epartment to travel to russia the dominican republic, cuba. At that time, these countries were not restricted. Getcan Lee Harvey Oswald out of the marine corps three months ahead of time, and at the same time be issued a passport to travel . The evidence is overwhelming that mrs. Oswald is wrong as to what her son did. Yet, there remain disturbing indications that she may not be quite so wrong about some kind of link between oswald and various intelligence agencies of the United States. The question of whether or not he had relationship with the fbi or cia is not frivolous. The agencies are, of course, silent. Power commission had full to conduct its investigation. It permitted the fbi and cia to investigate themselves, thus casting a permanent shadow on the answers. Critic asked the question of witnesses. Which of those it decided to believe. Once again, edward jay epstein. No one could be sure of whether it did or not, because what we can see, the commission brought forth most of the testimony. Whether there were other witnesses that should be called. I think you can show other witnesses were called. I saw this man in the window with the gun. There was another man beside him. He was holding the gun down. His arms were resting. They never called her, nor did the lawyer ever investigate her. The Warren Commission interviewed 552 people. It, the question of whether interviewed the right witnesses and how to evaluate the testimony. For instance, what about her . She saw two men with a gun in a different window. She never got to tell her story to the commission. An attorney for the commission who had a hand in the decision not to call mrs. Walter after her interview with the fbi, said the commission could not hear every Single Person who had been in the plaza that day. He pointed out that her woman companion standing next to her told investigators that she had never mentioned seeing any men. Of those 552 manysses who were called, of their testimonies were considered less relevant than hers. Perhaps they should of had a chance to decide whether or not she solid she said she did. Right now, long after the report is out, what bothers you most about the report . Is there a central question about it . There is one central question that does bother me. It involves the autopsy performed on president kennedy. There seemed to be a contradiction between the fbi report and the autopsy. The fbi said it received documentation. The autopsy reports published by the Warren Commission i dont think we have to get into details but it was absolute. If one was true, the other one couldnt. The fbi said the bullet didnt go through from a short distance. Said it wentrt clean through. It exited. There was evidence that i think any lawyer or Law Enforcement would demand, and that is the actual photographs of the autopsy. From the day the Commission Published its report, its decision to go met those vital photographs and xrays has been under attack. Only that physical evidence, say the critics, can resolve the debate over how many bullets struck the president , where they came from, and where they went. More than one critic is charged that the autopsy report is not the original, but has been changed to conform with the commissions theories. After a silence of 3. 5 years, the doctorate bethesda Naval Hospital agreed to reexamine those disputed photographs and xrays and review his findings for this broadcast. Here is what captain james humes told dan rather. It seems to cbs news that one of the most serious errors made by the Warren Commission was its decision not to look at those photographs and xrays an error now compounded. The Kennedy Family, which has all autopsy photos, agreed to donate them with the stipulation that they be locked away for five years, with only certain authorized government personnel allowed to see them. That thosed propose grim and tragic relics be made generally available to be flashed across Television Screens and newspaper pages. But in view of their crucial bearing on the entire assassination, we believe those films should now be made available for independent examination by expert cap all adjust with high qualifications. There is one further piece of evidence which we feel must now be made available to the entire public. Zapruders film. A life executive refused cbs permission to show you that film on the grounds that it is an invaluable asset to time incorporated. Even though these broadcasts demonstrated that the film may contain vital undiscovered clues to the assassination, the decision means you cannot see the supporter film in its proper but we believe it is an invaluable asset. For the people of the United States. Until now, we have heard a great deal about the Warren Commission from its friends and foes. But one of the commission itself. Where do the numbers stand . Chief Justice Warren who headed the commission has refused to discuss the report publicly. To commissioner has agreed broadcast. In this here is john mccloy, president ial advisor and former high commissioner for germany. However objectively the commission may have done this, the report estimates just as well with the title of the case against Lee Harvey Oswald. As much satisfied effort was put into challenging that case as into establishing. In other words, did the accused get a fair trial . Thing, i haday one some question as to the propriety of my appearing here is a former member of the commission to comment on the evidence of the commission. There seems to be some question, and i think there is some question about the viability of doing that. To try and answer your question is to point out that this was an investigation, not a trial. Plaintiff orve any defendant. This is what is known as an adversarial proceeding. We were all called upon to come down there and, i believe thats where he was, to satisfy as to the relevant facts in relation to the assassination. That is the basis upon which we started. There have been a number of suggestions. The commission was motivated by a desire to make things quiet so as to give comfort to the administration or comfort to the thate and the country there was nothing vicious about this. That was not the attitude that we had it all. I know my attitude was that i was convinced there was something phony. 48 hours after the assassination, here is this man shot in a police station. I was very skeptical about that, but as time went on and we heard , just think how silly this charges. Five of us were republicans. We were not beholden to any administration. Besides that, we had our own integrity to think of. People have said that you can rely upon the distinguished character of the commission. But you do not need to rely on the character of that commission. Maybe it was distinguished and maybe it wasnt. Know that seven men are not going to get together and concoct a conspiracy with all of the members of the staff we had, with all of the investigative agencies. There was a conspiracy of character. Even some of the distorted charges and conspiracies on the part of oswald. Well, we went there and walked over dealy plaza. We went into the school book to theory and we talked Police Officers that were there. We retraced stepbystep his movements from the School Book Depository to the point at which he was apprehended in the theater. Down. Sed ourselves up and i sat in the window and held a rifle with a highpowered scope on it. I said to myself that this must be the exact moment where the assassin sat. I snapped the trigger many times. At thea car moving alledge great. I could go on. But i am just trying to give you the impression of the fact that we did this assiduously. We try to work out as best as we could our own judgments, and in relation to it. Investigation the came about in 1963 and ran through september of 1964. Could you have used more time . That is the charge conclusions were rushed. That there was a stringent timescale imposed. The conclusions were not rushed at all. If there was any charge that could be made, maybe this is an unjust charge. Rushed to print a little too soon. At innclusions we arrived our own good time, this is one thing i would do again. I would insist on those photographs and xrays, having been produced for us. In one respect and only one perhaps a little over sensitive to what we understood was the sensitivities of the Kennedy Family against the production of them. We had the best evidence in regard to the pathology with respect to the president s wounds. It was our own choice that we did not subpoena these photographs. Couldnt necessarily have particularly subpoenaed them. I thought he was really going to see them. There should be some skepticism to any such report. Account for the fact that the disbelievers outnumber the believers by such a wide margin if you want me to speculate on it, it stretches the credulity. It is pretty scandalous. Bear in mind that there is an enormous amount of books written , a large number of pamphlets written. Blurbs and all of the propaganda, you know what happens with selling books. Many thousands of those have been distributed and red. Limiteds a rather distribution of the report. There are other things i suppose you could talk about, strange attitudes that people associate with politics. Gone to a number of campuses, for example. To find that the casessors in many of the not the majority think it was liberals who came to the that a defector could have been the assassin of the president. It was theal to feel result of a rightwing conspiracy in a hostile atmosphere in texas. Maybe there is a general distrust of government agencies. You can speculate on it as much as i can on it. What i do what irritates me is any suggestion that the commission was motivated by anything other than that. There were competent people in people who were experienced in investigation like senators and congressmen. People who are used to dealing with fbi reports. They went after this thing and determined there was nothing fraudulent about it, nothing sinister about it either conscious or subconscious. And i think as i say, common sense would tell you that this must be the case. It may have hurt someone along the wind, but i havent seen any credible evidence. In a way we have come to the end of this report on the war and report. 43. 5 hours, we presented what seemed to us the most significant new evidence concerning the assassination itself and the president s commission to investigate it. , we beganhese months to realize there was one more question to be answered. That question did not involve. He assassination it involved the people of the United States. How is it possible so Many Americans disbelieve the report . Instance, when 2 million copies of the report have been sold as gallup indicate that six out of 10 americans think they know enough about it to mistrust it. Margin arensiderable there books attacking the report . The indications suggest that completely apart from the merits of the war and report itself, there may be something abroad. The victimennedy was of a lone madman. The final question, then, could america believe the war and report . Sociologisthed whose specialty is american behavior. Him about theed National Reaction of disbelief to the war and report. We are terribly bothered by murders. Will we get a jack the rippertype thing. Someone is kidnapped because of his money, this is ok. Not that you want it, but you can understand what happened. Assassination is a consequence of a plot that is like the context of a crime for a movie. If someone is just shot down in the street by someone who picks if then and shoots him, president is assassinated not because of a rational plot but because of some nut who has a president can be assassinated. Anyone can. A man who looks into the american spirit from another viewpoint, with equally keen interest. Is considered a major insight into what we are and how we got that way. I think there has come up in recent years, particularly since the end of the cold war the coming of the cold war something that could be called disparity psychology. If anything goes wrong, anything like the socalled loss of china like a discovery of espionage somewhere or these terrible itts of the assassination, is expected to be applied to the United States. The point is that ordinary rules do not hold for us. A great number of the things that are ordinarily explained by the normal processes of history are not to be explained because pply to the a United States because we are expected to be victorious, to triumph. This miasma of suspicion, this conspiracy. We are at a crossroads everywhere. Persuaded have been very largely since the beginnings of the cold war to be more respective to be more receptive to conspiracy theories. Im not paranoid, but we are on the road to a paranoiac explanation of things. Think an you independent investigation into the president is any more likely to be believed . I see no reason to. He andspiracy there mentality is to not accept ordinary evidence any more than it expects an ordinary explanation for the death of john wilkes booth. Is a psychological requirement that forces them to reject the ordinary and find refuge in the extraordinary. If another investigation were to be held and came up with the same conclusion, as i am inclined to think it would, it would be found just as unsatisfactory. The critics would say of course, because they want a different explanation. Thats the dirty work at the crossroads, of covering things up. They are exceln, rise to and watching these four programs. We turned to his thoughts on the commission and its work. When this reporter returned home after the first year of world war ii in europe, i made a few speeches to american groups. Intelligent middleclass town hall audiences. Almost invariably, some man or group of men would get me aside after the speech and say now, tell us the real lowdown. This is my first adult encounter with that strain of permanent skepticism about what people here who runs through the American People. The distrust that governs their feelings toward Public Events more than their feelings toward one another in daily life. Part of the impulse is the horse trader desire not to be taken in. It is the wish to be personally in the know on the other fellow. But this automatic reaction that there must be a conspiracy somewhere, this probably has as a resultong us of world war ii and the cold war that followed. Roosevelt mustve sold out. Of skier reds in the state department, teachers must have delivered china to communist hands. Otherwise reputable personages conspired with the japanese to create the pearl harbor attack. What sets the conspiracy notion of the kennedy assassination among Many Americans was the allngruity of the affair, that power and majesty wiped out by one skinny, weak chin little character. It was like believing the queen mary had sunk without a trace because of a law in the atlantic. This almost in believable incongruity is characterized almost every one of the assassinations and attempted assassinations of american president s. Deranged little men killed lincoln, garfield, mckinley, and tried to kill franklin and theodore roosevelt. Only the assassination attempt on truman represented a real conspiracy. There are people who think hitlerism alive, think that the elders of zion are in a plot to o control the world. 3. 5 years later, there are people who still think some group of men are living somewhere, carrying in their breast the most explosive secret conceivable the knowledge of a plot to kill mr. Kennedy. These men supposedly go about their lives under iron selfdiscipline, never pulling out from each other. Never giving a hint of suspicion. Nearly three years after the inquiry finished its report, there are not only the serious critics who point out the mistakes of commission or omission, mistakes one can only guess at, the kind of probably plagued every official. There are also people who think the commission itself was a conspiracy to cover up something. In the first place, it would be utterly impossible in the conceal arena to conspiracy amongst so many individuals who live in the public eye. Place, the deepest legions of people like chief Justice Warren or john mccloy does not outline with any current cause. It lies with history, their name and place in history. Thats all they live for in their later years. If they suppress or distort evidence about such an event, their descendents would bear accursed names forever. Upthree years ago, we summed our feelings about the report. In the end, we find confronting each other a liar, a misfit, a protector. Seven distinguished americans on the other. We must be careful that we do not say too much. Oswald was never tried for any crime. Therefore, there will forever be questions about substance. The Warren Commission could not give Lee Harvey Oswald his day in court. Suspects are not tried by distinguished americans. Their cases are heard by ordinary citizens. Revolver, jack rubys 12 citizens would have heard the evidence, would have heard oswald had he chosen to speak. That jury would have represented our judgment, our conscience, and in the end, what is spoken for us. We do not have that reliance now. We must look into our own conscience. The Warren Commission cannot do that for us. We are all the jury in america and throughout the world. We found no reason to withdraw what we said then. We studied the report again, this time with the benefit of three years of controversy. We have found wherever you look, without preconceptions you come away convinced that the story it tells is the best account we are ever likely to have about what happened that day in dallas. Objections to the report vanish when they are exposed in the light of honest inquiry. It is a strange kind of tribute to the worn report that every objection that can be raised against it can be found in the report itself. The answers to some questions leave us restless. That a single bullet struck down both the president and governor is too coincidental to be comfortable. But believing that a second shot materialized out of thin air and then vanished again into thin of, leaving behind no trace the rifle, the bullet, or any other sign of existence is dangerous to. The Commission Report is the easiest to believe, and that is all the report claims. Also thatve found there has been a loss of morale, a loss of confidence among the American People toward their own government. More woundings than the assassination itself. The damage that Lee Harvey Oswald did to the country itself did not end when those shots were fired at the texas School Book Depository. Most grievous wounds persist. There is reason to believe that they will soon be healed. This is walter cronkite. That night. This has been the fourth and final in a series. A cbs news inquiry. This broadcast was produced under the supervision and control of cbs news. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] you can watch all four parts of the cbs news inquiry on our website, www. Cspan. Org. Where we archive all of our programs. Everynto real america saturday at 10 00 p. M. , and sunday at 4 00 eastern. Tv, allamerican history weekend, every weekend on cspan3. In 1829, mexico abolished slavery. A few years later, the revolt of texas declared independence from mexico and the us to some of slavery expanded. Historian Alice Baumgardner talks about the tension along the texas Mexican Border during the mid19th century. American history tv recorded the interview at the western History Association annual meeting, taking place in san antonio, texas. Joining us from san antonio, texas, is alice baumgartner, a graduate of yale university. If you could, take us back to the early 1800s, the issue of slavery in mexico and in texas. Most people are really surprised to hear that slavery existed in mexico in the 19th century. 15801640, the viceroyalty n