Immediately after the assassination of the John F. Kennedy, several remarkable events happened in quick succession that were long held secret.
It is common knowledge that aides to President Lyndon Johnson quickly brought pressure to bare on all Texas law enforcement officials to hand over everything they had on Oswald to the FBI. The President, allied with the FBI Director conspired to countermand Texas State authority over the crime investigation, the evidence, and the body itself, getting it transferred to a military hospital (Bethesda Naval) for the autopsy. This amounted to total Federal control of the incident. Apparently somewhere along the way they uncovered major issues with the evidence and sought to manipulate it so their story of a long gunman would hold up. It was a hurried and sloppy affair and they left lots of clues in their wake.
Largely unknown for years afterward was the ceremonial gifting of the evidence collected by the Dallas Police to the FBI on November 26, four days after the assassination. Notice the word “ceremonial.” Because this was not the first transfer of evidence to the FBI. It was actually the second. The first occurs within 24 hours after the assassination. This is admitted to by FBI document specialist James Cardigan in a deposition he gave to the Warren Commission, unpublished in their 26 volumes of evidence, but finally released to the National Archives in 1992.
Here is what Mr. Cardigan had to say:
“Initially, the first big batch of evidence was brought into the laboratory on November 23 and this consisted of many, many items...It was a very large quantity of evidence that was brought in.”
He added:
“Time was of the essence and this material, I believe, was returned to the Dallas Police within two or three days.”
However, this created a host of problems. All evidence obtained by the Dallas Police was initialized by the officer that discovered it. The makes an item traceable to that officer should there be any questions. This also is known as the chain of evidence. Incredibly, the Dallas Police got back more evidence than they sent off! The innovatory list grew from 5 pages to 21 pages. Which raises the question of, where did the FBI get all of this extra stuff? And so fast after assassination? Dallas was Oswald’s final place of action; Dallas is the vector. The FBI apparently added on to the inventory list with things from Washington, as all items belonging to Oswald and all items from the crime scene were in Dallas as gathered and documented by the Dallas Police. Since no initials from the FBI agents are used on the things they submitted, there is no way of sourcing where the new evidence came from. Normally, FBI agents use a series of forms, depending upon use, for collecting evidence such as a D-504a (Chain of Custody), or a FD-597 (Receipt for Property Received, Returned, Released, Seized). None of this documentation has ever been found. Most likely these forms were not issued because the FBI wanted to make it look as if all evidence originated from the Dallas Police. But as we see, it did not! So it must be stated then, that the only reliable evidence recovered is that found by the Dallas Police Department because it can be traced.
And what is the point of this? To erase any doubt that Lee Oswald was involved in a conspiracy. What other reason would there be? It makes no sense otherwise. We see some of this in action with the Minox spy camera. The FBI brought pressure on the Dallas detective that properly identified it as a camera, wanting him to rename it a “light meter.” What light meter has a lens and film in it? Since it’s a tool of the intelligence trade, and the FBI knew this, it had to be covered up so that Oswald would not appear to be more deeply involved, either with the government or a conspiracy. (Mind you, this is coming directly from Hoover.) The detective didn’t budge and the FBI renamed it anyway, only admitting years later that it was indeed, a camera and releasing photos made with it. This is probably a glimpse of what went on behind the scenes at the FBI crime lab in Washington as they were sorting through, adding and deleting the evidence in their possession. If there was a conspiracy, evidence of it was taken out of play at this point.
Even more problematic is that the Dallas Police photographed all the evidence they collected. On the first pass-back by the FBI, a large number of negatives were not returned. Police Chief Curry contacted the FBI about this and he got a direct response from Hoover himself, stating that the photographs, some 196, were destroyed because they exhibited “faulty technique” by the Dallas Police photographer. Which of course, is nonsense. If he were that bad a photographer he couldn’t have kept his job ruining that many frames. The 196 negatives that were destroyed represents over half the photographs taken of the evidence. With so much evidence tampering going on one can see the need to make sure these images disappear. No telling what sort of conflicts would have arisen.
John F. Kennedy’s body is barely cold and already elements in the government are tampering with material evidence and committing a huge obstruction of justice. This series of acts broke the chain of evidence in the case. These devious actions on the part of Hoover and the FBI, of squirreling away evidence and then staging a show for the public, hint at a larger, darker, behind the scenes machinations of the investigation. If Oswald had not been killed by Jack Ruby it would have been a heck of a trial! Think of the evidence that would have to have been tossed due to this hanky-panky.
The Convergence
The more one digs into this case, the nastier it becomes. One begins to see laid bare a dark undercurrent of malfeasance and treachery that resemble Roman court intrigues. Even though Hoover is dead and gone it is as if his spirit still resides in the Bureau. This came to light a few years ago when the FBI denied it had found any of the black boxes from flights American 11 and United 175 that crashed on 9-11. Since then, New York City firefighter Nicholas DeMasi and volunteer Mike Bellone, have come forward to claim they were responsible for finding three of the four Flight Data Recorders and were told to keep quiet about it. They only came forward when they heard the FBI’s claims that no black boxes were ever found.
Seem familiar? It should. There were plenty of witnesses to the assassination that were told to shut their mouths too. However, It is good that men like DeMasi and Bellone are still around. Men that honor truth and seek justice. I just hope they are not crushed by the Beast that emerged from the ashes of Dealey Plaza.
Sources: Armstrong, John, Harvey and Lee; Douglass, James, JFK and the Unspeakable; www.ctka.net (Probe Magazine article archive); www.history-matters.com; Horne, Douglas, Inside the Assassination Records Review Board
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