How Mark Lane and the Communist Party Bamboozled America
 |
[Getty Images / Graphic: © 2023 DKM]
BY DALE K. MYERS
It’s been nearly six-decades since President John F. Kennedy and Dallas Patrolman J.D. Tippit were murdered on the streets of Dallas. The accused assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, was also gunned down forty-eight hours later – murder piled high upon murder.
It would probably be a big surprise to anyone under age thirty that the claims of a vast JFK assassination conspiracy that they’ve been hearing about for the past sixty-years has its roots in Marxist-Communist propaganda.
The Communist party, with a great deal of assistance from its associates here in America, have gone to considerable lengths to convince a gullible populace that the accused assassin and self-proclaimed Marxist Lee Harvey Oswald should be exonerated and that radical “right-wing elements” were to really to blame for the assassination.
The majority of the young generation who were alive when JFK was shot down have always embraced the idea that life in America changed for the worst after Kennedy was shot. They saw it as their country spinning out of control due to unbridled violence.
They were right. The country did change, but not in the way you’ve been hearing about. The self-absorbed Marxist who held the rifle in the sixth-floor window fired three-shots into the heart of America that day in Dallas and sent her on a path of self-destruction; compliments of Marxist ideology.
Doubt it? If you’ve been paying attention to what’s been going in America since 1963, particularly in the last few years, you know exactly what I’m talking about – all of it on full display on television screens throughout the world. And it all started in Dallas.
No doubt Oswald, the original rebel without a cause, would be amused at what he has wrought. Who says one man can’t change the world?
In order to bring the magnitude of Oswald’s destructive deed into sharper focus, this article takes a hard look at what U.S. attorney Mark Lane and his associates were up to in the immediate wake of the assassination – 1963 to 1966. The vast majority of the information collected for this piece has been available for decades, but studiously avoided by left-minded individuals for reasons that will become abundantly clear.
Although there were many other influencers around the world – including Joachim Joesten, Leo Sauvage, Thomas Buchanan and Harold Weisberg – who were also in the spotlight during the same period, it is Mark Lane who rose to the highest levels of international prominence and acclaim pushing the Marxist-Communist agenda.
In an effort to keep your eyeballs from completely glazing over, what follows is only a brief chronological accounting of Lane’s activities which furthered the ideological aims of the Communist Party and cast doubt on what, at its heart, is a very simple case of one Marxist sociopath gone amuck. There is more – much more – than what I’ve included here. Consider this abbreviated chronology the proverbial ‘tip of the iceberg.’
As you read, take note of the influence Mark Lane had on many young people at numerous colleges and universities; the level at which the KGB, the Communist Party USA and its affiliated front groups were involved in the funding and promotion of Lane’s allegations; how Lane played the martyr in Europe, acting as a modern-day Emile Zola (fighting for the falsely accused); Lane’s relentless public grandstanding and his private efforts to avoid anything that remotely smacked of getting to the truth, whatever that might be – and most important, the parallels to what is happening in America today.
It’s all so hard to stomach given what we now know about the JFK assassination with access to more than five-million pages of investigative files, photographs, motion pictures, sound recordings and artifacts (representing approximately 2,000 cubic feet of records). Consider yourself warned.
The Self-Avowed Marxist
To begin, it’s important to understand that Lee Harvey Oswald was a devout follower of Marxist doctrine. Marxism sought to expose the supposed flaws inherent in free-market societies and to promote an alternative form of government – Communism – a utopian, classless society where no one owns anything and everyone is happy.
The communist movement in the United States began to rear its ugly head in 1919 and since then, has developed one of the greatest propaganda machines the world has ever known.
In the process, many persons in leadership roles have been duped into helping the communist movement. [1]
“I do fear for the liberal and progressive who have been hoodwinked and duped into joining hands with the communists,” FBI director J. Edgar Hoover declared in 1947. “I do fear so long as school boards and parents tolerate conditions whereby communists and fellow travelers under the guise of academic freedom can teach our youth a way of life that eventually will destroy the sanctity of the home that undermines faith in God, that causes them to scorn respect for constituted authority and sabotage our revered Constitution.” [2]
Sixteen years after Hoover’s remarks, Oswald struck at the heart of America and set into motion the very thing the FBI director feared most – an unwitting populace suckered by determined communists and American opportunists into believing, and in some cases helping to perpetuate, the Communist propaganda myth.
 |
November 22 – Communists react
By 2:23 p.m. (CST) on November 22, 1963, less than two-hours after President Kennedy had been shot dead in Dallas, Texas, and thirty-minutes after Lee Oswald had been arrested in the Texas Theater for the murder of Dallas Patrolman J.D. Tippit, the Soviet news agency TASS carried a “flash” on its international English-language radioteletype circuit: “It has just been officially announced that United States President John F. Kennedy has died in hospital after an attempt was made on his life by persons, as believed, from among the extreme right-wing elements.”
The arrest of Oswald, the self-avowed Marxist and former defector to the Soviet Union, wasn’t mentioned at all by TASS until the next morning, Saturday, November 23 at 9:00 a.m. (CST) and even then, they didn’t mention his connection to the Soviet Union.
Saturday afternoon, November 23, at 2:00 p.m. (CST) TASS finally announced that Oswald had been arrested, but then claimed Dallas police officials were trying to implicate the Communist Party, insisting that the crime was actually the work of “racists, the Ku Klux Klan and Birchists.”
“Reports also are being endlessly repeated that Oswald lived for a time in the Soviet Union, that he has a Russian wife and that he was not only a member but chairman of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee,” TASS reported. “But the more details that are reported, the darker and more suspicious the whole case. Serious commentators are not putting faith in the police story about ‘left wing elements’ being responsible for this monstrous crime. They continue to await the results of further investigation.” [3]
Within minutes of Oswald’s murder on Sunday, November 24, by Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby, the Yugoslav news agency reported that Oswald had “probably been shot to shut his mouth.”
Soviet TASS began painting Oswald as a martyr reporting that “the murderers of President John Kennedy are trying to cover up their traces…Now, the only person who was accused of killing President Kennedy, the man who until the very end denied implication, has been silenced forever.”
Neues Deutschland, the East German Communist party newspaper, told its readers the killing of Oswald strengthened suspicion that Mr. Kennedy was the victim of a conspiracy by right-wing extremists.
Neues Deutschland suggested also that the J.D. Tippit, Dallas policeman killed by Oswald, actually was shot down because he knew too much about men behind the assassination of the President.
ADN, the official East German news agency, said “political observers” believe Mr. Kennedy’s assassination was ordered by extreme right-wingers who “tried with all means to put the blame for the murder of Kennedy on the Communists and brand Oswald a Communist.”
A comment by a French television announcer summed up much of the reaction in Western Europe to the Oswald killing this way: “There will always be a doubt in the world whether he was innocent or guilty.” [4]
An American propagandist
It didn’t take long for propagandists affiliated with American Communist front organizations to seize the Soviet narrative and run with it.
First on the scene, and most prominent, was New York attorney Mark Lane, a well-known purveyor of left-wing causes, who was elected in May, 1953, as an ex officio member of the Board of Directors of the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) – an organization described by the House on Un-American Activities (HCUA) as “the foremost legal bulwark of the Communist Party.” [5]
Lane had a long history with and deep connections to other notable leftists as well.
In 1960, several FBI sources reported that attorney Isidore Gibby Needleman was in frequent contact with Mark Lane and was interested in assisting him in his political campaign in 1960 to become elected to the New York State Legislature. [6]
Needleman was formerly employed by Amtorg Trading Corporation, the registered Russian trade agency in the U.S. He had also represented current (1964) and former Communist Party members in court and before various Congressional committees. He had custody of Communist Party funds and had described himself as “a strict adherent of Marxist-Leninist doctrines.” He had also acted as “a Soviet espionage agent” according to an FBI source in March, 1953. [7]
On April 21, 1961, Lane was a speaker at a rally sponsored by the New York Council to Abolish the House Un-American Activities Committee (NYCAHUAAC). [8] The NYCAHUAAC was an affiliate of the National Council to Abolish the House on Un-American Activities and both were founded principally by Frank Wilkinson who had been a member of the Communist Party since 1952. Multiple FBI sources had reported the Communist Party members in the NYC area have been solicited on various occasions to support the NYCAHUAAC. [9]
On November 6, 1961, a rally was held at the McMillan Theater, Columbia University, NYC, to protest the ban by the university against the appearance of several previously-scheduled communist speakers. According to an FBI source, Benjamin J. Davis, National Secretary of the Communist Party, and Mark Lane were the principal speakers at the rally. [10]
 |
On December 18, 1961, The Militant, a weekly newspaper of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) – one of two publications that Lee Harvey Oswald is holding in the infamous backyard photos – published an article concerning an NYCAHUAAC rally held on December 6, 1961, which stated that Mark Lane said his first official action during the coming session of the New York State Legislature would be to introduce a resolution to persuade Congress to abolish the HCUA. [11]
Four days later, on December 22, 1961, a sexual perversion case against Mark Lane was initiated by the Queens County District Attorney’s office after Phyllis D. Golden tried to pass a bad check at a Queens County, New York department store. The resulting investigation led to evidence in the form of Polaroid photos and handwritten instructions by Lane himself that Lane had been paying Golden for sexual favors. The scandal eventually resulted in Lane’s decision not to run for re-election to the Legislature in 1962, after serving a stormy two-year term.
In 1962, during the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Mark Lane was the chief speaker at an 800-person rally held at the Manhattan Center, NYC, sponsored by the New York Council to Abolish the House Un-American Activities Committee. The theme of Lane’s address was: ‘The Cuban quarantine should be in reverse. It is American ships which should be turned back.’ [12]
On October 31, 1963, Mark Lane attended and spoke at a joint rally at the Hotel Woodstock, West 43rd St., NYC, sponsored by the Citizens Committee for Constitutional Liberties (CCCL) and the Advance Youth Organization (AYO). Lane spoke in defense of AYO and the actions of the organization in recent hearings before the Subversive Activities Control Board. [13]
The HUAC concluded that the National Assembly for Democratic Rights (NADR), and a coordinating and organizing group in support of NADR, titled the Citizens Committee for Constitutional Liberties (CCCL), were Communist fronts created, dominated, and controlled by members and officials of the Communist Party. NADR and CCCL were organized as propaganda devices for the purpose of creating mass activities in support of their avowed objective – namely the reversal of Supreme Court decisions which upheld the constitutionality of disclosures under the Internal Security Act of 1950. Those rulings, as applied to the Communist Party and the Smith Act membership clause, made punishable active and purposive membership in the Communist Party.
The long-range objective of the CCCL was to serve as the vehicle for concealed Communist participation in, and direction of, propaganda and agitational activities aimed to nullify the Internal Security and Smith Acts. [14]
Lane seizes an opportunity
His political ambitions thwarted by the 1961 sex-scandal, Mark Lane saw an opportunity to grab national headlines again using the Kennedy assassination as his launching pad.
Three weeks after the assassination, on December 16, 1963, an informal meeting was held at Communist Party (CP) Headquarters in New York. Irving Potash and George Morris participated.
Irving Potash was an American and a member of the Communist Party USA from its earliest years. Potash had been expelled from the United States in 1955 and settled in Czechoslovakia. In 1957 he returned to the USA on communist business only to be arrested as an illegal entrant and imprisoned. On his release, he resumed communist activity becoming National Labour Secretary of the Communist Party USA. [15]
George Morris, was the labor editor of The Worker, an east coast Communist newspaper – one of two newspapers Oswald is holding in the infamous backyard photographs. [16]
It was stated at the CP meeting that Mark Lane, former New York State Assemblyman, had prepared a brief that would knock holes “in proof that (Lee) Oswald was guilty.” George Morris “said the prime thing to do was to prove he (Oswald) was not a Marxist. Potash said ‘The New Republic’ has an investigator trying to prove he (Oswald) ‘was linked to the ultra-right…’” [17]
 |
On December 19, 1963, The National Guardian published Mark Lane’s defense brief for Lee Harvey Oswald. [18] The National Guardian, established by the American Labor Party in 1947 as a progressive weekly, has been cited by the HCUA as having manifested itself as “a virtual official propaganda arm of Soviet Russia,” although the Guardian denied any affiliation. [19]
The next day, an FBI informant advised the FBI that Mark Lane associate Isidore Gibby Needleman furnished to Konstantin Semenov, a Soviet national employed as a secretary at Amtorg Trading Corporation, a copy of the brief prepared by Mark Lane which appeared in the December 19 issue of The National Guardian. [20]
On January 15, 1964, Lane announced that Marguerite Oswald had retained him to represent her son before the Warren Commission. [21] The New York Herald Tribune published an article, [22] which stated that Mrs. Oswald had been in contact with Lane during his stay in Fort Worth, Texas, the previous weekend. [23]
Communists back Lane
Two days later, an FBI informant advised that Zygmunt Broniarek, Washington, D.C., correspondent of Trybuna Ludu, a Polish daily newspaper and the official organ of the Polish United Workers Party (PZPR), a Communist organization, interviewed Mark Lane. Broniarek supported Lane’s view that someone other than Oswald was responsible for the assassination. [24]
The next day, January 18, 1964, an FBI informant advised that Broniarek told Mark Lane that he had just received a copy of the Trybuna Ludu which contained a reprint from “a very right-wing Italian newspaper called the ‘Twentieth Century,’” which claimed that J.D. Tippit was assigned to kill Kennedy and thereafter was to hide in the Depository and slip out because he was wearing a police uniform; that Tippit was promised a very big reward for the assassination; that after the assassination Tippit was to meet Jack Ruby and unknown to him, but part of the plan, Ruby was to kill him, which Ruby did. Broniarek told Lane that the article offered no proof for this theory but Broniarek thought Lane might be interested. Lane did express interest in the article. [25]
None of the allegations about Officer Tippit were true. By all accounts, Tippit had gone home for lunch shortly before 12 noon, returned to duty by 12:17 p.m. and was in his assigned district at the time of the assassination.
On January 24, 1964, Mark Lane spoke at a Militant Labor Forum (MLF) at the Henry Hudson Hotel in NYC, sponsored by the New York Local of the Socialist Worker’s Party (SWP).
An FBI informant stated that “over 800 persons were in attendance at the forum, although only a little more than $260.00 ($2,582 dollars today) was taken up at a collection to aid the mother of Oswald.” [26]
Many of the attendees were members of the SWP and Young Socialists of America (YSA). Two of the individuals seated at the press table were associated with the TASS News Agency in NYC. It was announced at the forum that the National Guardian was going to sponsor a tour by Mark Lane and Oswald’s mother, which would end up at Town Hall in NYC on February 18, 1964. [27]
Lane’s comments didn’t go beyond that which had been previously published in the National Guardian. Lane was scheduled to “play tapes of his interviews with Oswald’s mother, but did not because an attorney-client relationship now existed. After the meeting, it was learned that the SWP publication The Militant wanted to run an ad in the New York Post on Jan. 23-24, 1964, but although the ad was accepted, the editorial board of the Post rejected it without an answer as to why. Lane “suggested that The Militant Labor Forum sue the ‘New York Post’ for loss of revenue.” [28]
On January 31, 1964, Ralph Sacks, a member of the Communist Party front group “Milwaukee Citizens for Peace and Disarmament,” [29] stated at a meeting of the Milwaukee Friends of the National Guardian that Mark Lane was scheduled to come to Madison, Wisconsin on February 16, 1964. Sacks stated that Lane’s appearance at Madison would be sponsored by the Madison Friends of the National Guardian and that they could use a similar name, The Milwaukee Friends of the National Guardian, and sponsor Lane’s appearance in Milwaukee. Sacks received a telegram from NYC which stated that Lane would be available to speak in Milwaukee and Madison only on February 16, 1964, and that all arrangements should be made through the National Guardian. [30]
In early February, 1964, Lane traveled to California and was in contact with numerous individuals: Marvin Treiger, a member of the Youth Commission, Southern California District Communist Party; Carl Frank, a member of the Communist Party in Ohio; [31] and James Peter Hawley, a “key person” in the W.E.B. DuBois Clubs of America (DCA), and a close associate of, and a college roommate of, David Needleman, son of Isidore Gibby Needleman. [32]
Lane’s California speeches were sponsored by The National Guardian and Citizens for Peace and Disarmament, a known Communist Party front organization. [33]
While in California, Lane spoke at W.E.B. DuBois Club of San Francisco, CA, a communist youth organization which was conceived, controlled and operated by the Communist Party, USA, and whose expressed purpose was to “promote and encourage Marxist doctrines and to bring about a socialistic government in the U.S.”; [34] the San Diego Neighborhood Forum, the name under which the Communist Party sponsored public meetings in that area; [35] and at California Hall, 625 Polk at Turk, San Francisco, CA., where approximately 300 individuals were in attendance. [36] Margaret Driggs, an active member of the Communist Party since the depression of the 1930s, [37] sold copies of the National Guardian at the door.
The speaker’s stand at the event included Mark Lane, Vincent Hallinan, and Russell Arthur “Russ” Nixon of the National Guardian. [38]
None of Lane’s associates on the speaker’s stand were strangers to the FBI.
Vincent Hallinan, was a candidate for President of the U.S. on the Independent Progressive Party (IPP) ticket in 1952. In November, 1962, Hallinan was a featured speaker at the American Russian Institute’s (ARI) annual celebration. Among other things, Hallinan commented that “the Soviets are the saviors of the world and without the Soviet Union, the fascists would dominate and enslave the world.” On April 15, 1963, Hallinan was elected Chairman of the Bay Area Fair Play for Cuba Committee (BAFPCC). [39]
Russell Arthur “Russ” Nixon was a member of the Communist Party (CP) according to three former members, and had lobbied for the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) in Washington, D.C. since 1941 (with the exception of a two-year period during WWII), and was considered at one time to be “one of the most effective, most influential persons in the city of Washington as far as the labor movement was concerned.” [40]
More Communist backers
In mid-February, Lane returned east, stopping in Chicago, IL., to speak at the Midland Hotel, at a meeting of approximately 250 persons sponsored by Chicago Friends of the National Guardian. [41] Grace Sarniak, chairman of the Foster Club, Communist Party (CP) of Illinois, was responsible for the arrangements at the hotel and leaflets being printed announcing the event. Pearl Hart, attorney from Chicago and a member of the Communist Party (CP), acted as chairman for the meeting. Frank Anglin, the former treasurer of the Chicago Committee to Defend the Bill of Rights (CCDBR) – a Communist front group - and a member of its administrative committee; and Ernest De Maio, a member of a club of key Communist Party (CP) leaders in the Parsons Section of the Illinois-Indiana CP District, made brief speeches prior to Lane’s talk. [42]
Mark Lane’s close affiliation with the National Guardian was no secret during this period. Even Time magazine’s Wallace Terry telephoned the FBI asking for information about Lane’s connection with the left-wing weekly. The FBI told Terry to check with the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA) for background on the publication. [43]
During his mid-west tour, Lane stopped at Socialist Workers Party (SWP) Forum meeting in Detroit [44] and a meeting of the Citizens for Peace and Disarmament (CPD), a Communist front organization, held in Milwaukee. [45]
Next, Lane spoke to 1,000 students at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI., at a meeting sponsored by “The Contemporary Affairs Forum,” (CAF) and the Young Socialist Alliance (YSA). CAF leadership has been active in other pro-Communist-type campus groups.
The YSA was formed in October, 1957, in NYC by youths of various socialist tendencies, particularly members and followers of the Socialist Worker’s Party (SWP). The leaders of this group were the guiding forces in the establishment of the national organization. The May, 1960, issue of the “Young Socialist,” disclosed that during April 15-17, 1960, a national organization entitled “The Young Socialist Alliance” (YSA) was established in Philadelphia, PA. This issue stated that the YSA was formed by the nationwide supporter clubs of the “Young Socialist.”
According to this issue the Founding Declaration of the YSA stated that the “YSA recognizes the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) as the only existing political leadership on class struggle principles, and that the supporters of the YSA have come into basic political solidarity with the SWP on the principles of revolutionary socialism.” In essence, the YSA is “the youth and training section of the SWP and the main source of new SWP members.” [46]
Return to New York City
On February 18, 1964, Lane was back in New York, speaking to a sell-out crowd of 1,500 persons (many turned away at the door) at Town Hall, 123 West 43rd St., NYC, an event sponsored by The National Guardian. Special agents of the FBI were in attendance. [47]
James Aronson, National Guardian editor, introduced the panel. Chairmen for the evening was David Haber, a Rutgers University law professor connected to Communist front groups in the 1950s. Aronson introduced the other panel members and then explained "that the meeting itself is a victory. The Town Hall owners had threatened to cancel it because the Guardian couldn’t raise a $25,000 bond necessary in case of damage to the property. Through the intervention of lawyer Edward J. Ennis of the American Civil Liberties Union and quick donations from affluent readers of the Guardian, the show had succeeded in going on.”
Professor Haber told the audience that he is no expert on the Oswald case, but doesn’t approve of the “secrecy” and wonders what “they” are trying to hide, although he doesn’t say who “they” are. Haber questioned the legality of the Warren Commission and the character of its members, except Chief Justice Warren himself, whom all the speakers seem to agree is the only hope for justice, although they worry that he will put the prestige of the country above the truth.
Professor Staughton Lynd, a young American history instructor, compared the Oswald case to the Dreyfus affair. [48] “Why has our society become so fearful of the truth?” he asked the audience, failing to explain what “truth” was being hidden in the Oswald case. Nevertheless, the audience greeted his question with applause.
Mark Lane took the podium and repeated his defense brief using a chalkboard to draw diagrams of his theory of the shooting and the President’s wounds. He cited newspaper reports that supported his theories and ignored reports that undermine them. He reminded his audience that Dallas was “a terrible place.”
After a short fund-raising pitch from Dr. Annette Rubenstein, a pro-Communist lecturer, Mrs. Marguerite Oswald took the stage and rambled incoherently. During a Q&A session, a spectator asked Mrs. Oswald what evidence there was that Lee Harvey Oswald was working for the FBI or CIA. She replied that while he was in the Soviet Union, her son wrote many letters and she promised that all the information would be in a book she was writing. [49]
Suppressing facts
In late February, 1964, Radio Pulsebeat News, which distributed long-playing records to 100 radio news outlets across the country each week, included a news item which originated from an interview with Mark Lane: “There is no question that the United States Government is suppressing information in this case. There is no question but that FBI Agents and Secret Service Agents have attempted to have witnesses change their testimony. There is no question but that there is a deliberate attempt by the Government to prevent the American people from getting all the facts in this matter. There are documents now in the Dallas District Attorney’s Office which show almost conclusively that Oswald did not fire a rifle on November 22, 1963, the day of the assassination and there are affidavits on file at the District Attorney’s Office of Dallas which show that the shots came not from the Texas School Book Depository Building where it is alleged that Oswald was, but actually from the grassy knoll near the overpass directly in front of the Presidential car not the Book Depository Building directly to the rear of the Presidential car.” [50]
On February 27, 1964, the National Guardian published a Jack A. Smith article on the front page (“New break on Oswald’s gun”) that asserted the federal government was “suppressing facts” about the assassination and that despite the “massive obstruction, the efforts of independent individuals – journalists, lawyers and concerned citizens – are beginning to penetrate the wall of official secrecy.”
Smith reported Mark Lane’s claim that “a meeting took place in the nightclub operated by Ruby, two weeks before the assassination, attended by policeman J.D. Tippit, whose death shortly after Kennedy’s murder was attributed to Oswald; Bernard Weissman, New York ultra-conservative who placed an advertisement in a Dallas newspaper Nov. 22 accusing Kennedy of being ‘soft on communism,’ and a third person whose identity Lane said he is withholding until a more auspicious moment.” [51]
Smith reported that “Tippit would have been involved in the conspiracy, with the task of waiting for Oswald at the exit of the Book Depository in order to kill him to prevent him from talking,” however, “we could then suppose that Oswald managed to get far away from the scene of the attempt because of some error on Tippit’s part; and that Tippit chased after him knowing full well where Oswald was heading.” [52]
 |
Weissman-Ruby-Tippit Allegation
When the Warren Commission learned of Lane’s allegation that Weissman, Ruby and Tippit met at the Carousel Club, chief counsel J. Lee Rankin fired off a letter (March 18, 1964) to Lane requesting that he reveal his source for the allegation so that the commission could investigate it. [53]
Lane took his time responding, eventually writing back (on March 27, 1964) that he has been too busy with his speaking tour and had yet to contact his source to get permission. [54]
Rankin wrote Lane yet again (on April 16, 1964) requesting that Lane reveal the source of the Weissman-Ruby-Tippit allegation promptly and voluntarily or the Warren Commission would be forced to invoke the power of subpoena. In addition, Rankin demanded that Lane turn over his audio recording of his interview with Helen Markham. [55]
Lane didn’t bother to answer Rankin until April 29, 1964. In the meantime, Lane continued to pound the Weissman-Ruby-Tippit allegation at every speech he gave both domestically and abroad.
On your guard
On March 2, 1964, a Jack Lotto article (“On Your Guard: Rosenberg-Oswald”) published by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Seattle, WA., drew a parallel between the National Guardian’s efforts to exonerate (“secure justice” for) Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and its efforts thirteen-years later to exonerate Oswald.
According to Lotto, the National Guardian published a series of articles charging that the Rosenbergs were “framed” and “were innocent victims.” A national committee to “secure justice for the Rosenbergs and their co-conspirator Morton Sobell was soon formed. A congressional investigation later determined that the committee’s purpose was “to blacken the name of America throughout the world by casting doubt on American courts, agencies, and judicial processes. The campaign serves another purpose. It becomes the vehicle to collect hundreds of thousands of dollars from Americans to vilify their own country.”
In December, 1963, the National Guardian began its propaganda blast on Oswald. Lotto wrote, “Issue after issue, the Guardian pushes the theme Oswald was ‘framed.’ It becomes the sponsor of a coast to coast lecture tour by Lane, in which he also claims Oswald is innocent. In some cases, Mrs. Marguerite Oswald, the mother, appears on the same platform with Lane, such as in New York on February 18, to make the unsubstantiated claim that her son was a ‘scapegoat’ of the CIA, set up to take the blame for the killing.”
At the heart of both efforts is Robert Gwathmey, who was a sponsor for many years of the American Committee for the Protection of the Foreign Born, a group officially cited by the U.S. attorney general in 1948 as “subversive and communist;” was one of the sponsors of the Rosenberg clemency rallies and petitions; was among those who sponsored a 1952 conference to win amnesty for communists convicted under the Smith Act; appealed to President Truman in 1952 for amnesty for jailed communists; and was one of the petitioners to President Eisenhower in 1955 asking a halt to the trial of communists. [56]
Citizens Committee of Inquiry
On March 3, 1964, the day after the Jack Lotto article was published, as if on cue, Mark Lane and Robert Gwathmey, acting as treasurer, formed the “Citizens Committee of Inquiry” (CCI) for the expressed purpose of exonerating Oswald for both the murders of President Kennedy and Dallas patrolman J.D. Tippit.
Lane and Gwathmey, representing the CCI, opened a joint-checking account at Chemical Bank of New York. [57] Their initial deposit was $228 dollars ($2,264 dollars today) in the form of various checks. [58]
The address for the Citizens Committee of Inquiry (CCI) was given as 156 Fifth Avenue, Room 422, New York City, NY, and listed as a non-profit organization. Mark Lane was listed as Chairman; Robert Gwathmey, Treasurer; and Deirdre Griswold, Secretary.
The FBI was ordered to open a case file on the Mark Lane’s “Citizens Committee of Inquiry” (CCI) and closely follow its activities during the course of its regular “coverage of the Communist Party, its members and front groups and if it appears that the Citizens Committee of Inquiry is being used as an adjunct to subversive activities of the Communist Party, an immediate investigation should be initiated.” [59]
The primary reason for the FBI order was Lane’s compatriots: Gwathmey and Griswold – both of whom had lengthy FBI files.
Robert Gwathmey, CCI Treasurer
Robert Gwathmey was born January 24, 1903 in Richmond, VA., and was employed as an instructor at the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, Art School, 4th Avenue and 7th Street, NYC, New York and was on the FBI’s Security Index. [60] Gwathmey’s history of subversive activity extended over a 23-year span (1941-March, 1964) at the time.
During 1941-42, while employed as art instructor at the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh, PA, Gwathmey was alleged to be a communist sympathizer, reported to have attended allegedly communist dominated union meetings held in an attempt to organize the Workers Progress Administration art project. These meetings were held at Gwathmey’s home and the homes of two known Communist Party members in Pittsburgh. During 1941-42, Gwathmey was on the mailing list of the Contemporary Book Shop, the official Communist Party bookstore in Pittsburgh, where he lectured on at least two occasions.
In January, 1941, an FBI informant advised that Gwathmey was then a member of the Communist Party who was believed to be assigned to the artists unit of the Communist Party.
In 1951, Louis Budenz, former managing editor of the Daily Worker, a communist newspaper, stated that prior to 1945 (when Budenz left the CP), Gwathmey cooperated with the Cultural Commission of the Communist Party by recruiting artists and other professionals for communist front groups and was himself a member of such groups. [61]
During the period 1947 to 1961, Gwathmey was associated as a sponsor or facilitator of seventeen known subversive organizations, publications, or endeavors. [62] During the period 1947 to 1963, the Daily Worker, The Worker, and the National Guardian contain innumerable articles concerning Gwathmey’s activities which mention his name in a complementary fashion. [63]
Deirdre Griswold, CCI Secretary
Deirdre Thaddeus Griswold was born May 4, 1936, at Wilmington, DE., and was employed as Editorial Assistant, American Institute of Physics, NYC. Griswold was also on the FBI’s Security Index. [64]
She officially joined the Buffalo New York Branch of the Socialists Workers Party (SWP) in June, 1951, while a 15-year-old high school student.
Her mother, Elizabeth Copeland, was an active member of the Buffalo Branch, SWP, and her stepfather, Vincent Copeland, was a SWP functionary. She was married on August 11, 1953, to Lewis Griswold, who was also a member of the Buffalo Branch, SWP.
Mrs. Deirdre Griswold was selected by the SWP to attend the Trotsky School, Mountain Spring Camp, NJ., and was there from Dec.1957 to June, 1958. The Trotsky School was run by the SWP for party leaders and potential leaders. Following her attendance at the Trotsky School, she served on the Executive Committee of the Buffalo Branch, SWP, and was active in that branch until February 12, 1959.
At that time, a minority faction of the SWP, headed by Buffalo SWP organizer, Sam Marcy, left the SWP and formed their own group which they called the Workers World Party (WWP). Mrs. Griswold was one of the minority faction members and became a member of the Executive Committee of the Buffalo Branch of the WWP. In Dec. 1960, she was transferred to the NYC Branch and had been since residing in NYC. Mrs. Griswold participated in a picket demonstration at the United Nations Building, NYC, on April 19, 1961, and in front of the White House, on April 22, 1961 – both demonstrations sponsored by the July 26th Movement, a revolutionary organization founded and led by Fidel Castro. [65]
Mrs. Griswold was a continuing active member of the WWP in NYC through 1963 – where she visited party HQ, connected with party leaders on a regular basis, made contributions to the organization, attended the national WWP convention, and served as chairmen of the national convention on Sept. 4, 1961.
In 1961, 1962, and 1963, she served as the secretary of the Committee to Defend Francisco Molina which had been organized by the WWP with the support of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee (FPCC). Francisco Molina Del Rio, a strongarm man and street-brawler for Cuban dictator Fidel Castro was convicted on April 7, 1961, of second-degree murder in connection with the shooting of a 9-year-old Venezuelan girl, who was dining with her family in a NYC restaurant on September 21, 1960. A fight ensued between pro and anti-Castro Cubans, and the young girl was caught in the crossfire. [66]
In Oct. 1961, Griswold attended a meeting of the July 26th Movement; in Sept. 1961, she attended a function sponsored by the Fair Play for Cuba Committee (FPCC); and in November 1961 appeared before the Third General Assembly of the Movimiento Pro Independencia de Puerto Rico (MPIPR) where she stated that she represented the FPCC and the National Guardian. The MPIPR is a group that seeks independence for Puerto Rico which includes members of the Nationalist Party of Puerto Rico, a group deemed subversive by Exec. Order 10450.
In 1962-1963, Mrs. Griswold continued her association with MPIPR functions and demonstrations. In early 1962, Mrs. Griswold attended a meeting of the West Side Committee for Friendly Relations with Cuba, an organization of North Americans, Puerto Ricans and Cubans formed by a section organizer of the Communist Party of the USA in NYC on Feb. 9, 1961, to create favorable and better relations with Cuba. [67]
In Jan. 1962, Mrs. Griswold participated in a picket demonstration outside the UN sponsored by the FPCC. She took part in two more FPCC functions in the spring of 1963. In June, 1962, she was arrested for creating a disturbance during a WWP sponsored hospital strike in NYC.
In mid-1962, Mrs. Griswold became active in the leadership of the Youth Against War and Fascism (YAWF), the successor to the Anti-Fascist Youth Committee which was established by the WWP to attract youth to WWP membership. (In Sept. 1962, she was described as one of the two persons controlling the YAWF group.)
Beginning in Feb. 1962, Mrs. Griswold attended functions and demonstrations of the Casa Cuba Club (CCC), which held a meeting on November 29, 1961, at which the CCC constitution was revised to make loyalty to the July 26th Movement and the revolutionary government of Fidel Castro a necessary prerequisite to CCC membership. [68]
By the fall of 1962. Mrs. Griswold was said to wield great influence at meetings of the FPCC. In June, 1963, members of the Cuban mission to the UN had been invited to a party at Mrs. Griswold’s apartment. In addition to all of the above, Mrs. Griswold has participated in numerous demonstrations, organizations, and functions sponsored by left-oriented groups. [69]
More reckless charges
On March 20, 1964, an FBI informant was told by Vincent Theodore Lee, former head of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee (FPCC), that he had “turned over all correspondence regarding the desire of Lee Harvey Oswald to establish a chapter of the FPCC in Dallas to the FBI.” Lee also said “that statements concerning the assassination of President Kennedy by individuals previously active in FPCC declare that the President was actually assassinated by Dallas Police Officer J.D. Tippit. Also, that one week before the assassination, Patrolman Tippit, the Head of the John Birch Society in Dallas, and an unnamed third party suggested by these FPCC individuals as possibly being Oswald, were together in Jack Ruby’s night club. Lee also stated that while Oswald was an FPCC advocate, he had also joined a number of anti-Castro movements and was, therefore, in position to know everything that was going on, on both sides of the issues involved.” [70]
Needless to say, none of V.T. Lee’s charges regarding Tippit were true. Tippit was not the head of the John Birch Society nor is there any evidence he was a member of the society. Furthermore, there has never been any believable evidence that Tippit knew Oswald or was with Oswald in Ruby’s Carousel Club. And finally, there is no evidence that Oswald joined “a number of anti-Castro movements”. Oswald did offer his “services” to Carlos Bringuier, the face of the DRE in New Orleans in 1963, but his offer was rejected.
The FBI took note of the fact that the allegations by V.T. Lee regarding a meeting of J.D. Tippit and others at Ruby’s Carousel Club was “similar to the allegation made by Mark Lane” who claimed that a meeting took place between Bernard Weissman, J.D. Tippit, and Jack Ruby at the Carousel Club. [71]
Same ole same
During mid to late-March, 1964, Lane headed back to the west coast to give numerous speeches. An FBI source advised that Mark Lane’s speeches are virtually the same at each stop.
“Lane usually begins his speech,” the report stated, “by stating that a Gallup poll ten-days after the assassination showed that 52 percent of the American people rejected the FBI version as being an inaccurate version of the assassination.
“He then discusses the concept of instant guilt of a defendant, and states that he did not believe any defendant would have received a fair trial in this case because of the excessive newspaper publicity.
“Lane states that he came into the case because he was worrying about the withering away of the presumption of innocence of a defendant, and finally decided to write an article against the substance of the case against Oswald.
“His first step in the defense of Oswald was to attempt to establish the fact that the atmosphere in Dallas the day before the shooting was extremely hostile toward Kennedy. According to Lane, “there were posters all over Dallas showing the front and profile” of Kennedy with the words: “Wanted Dead or Alive” beneath the posters. On the day of the assassination, there was a full-page advertisement in the Dallas papers asking why Kennedy was soft on communism. Lane implies that the “extreme right-wing organizations were responsible for both the posters and the ads.” [72]
“Utilizing three primary props, Lane discusses the contradictory statements that have been made in the Oswald case: (1) Photostats of affidavits of the Dallas Police Department; (2) A tape-recorded interview of Jean Hill who claims four to six shots were fired; (3) Photographs from Life magazine, New York Times, Detroit Free Press, Newsweek, and police photographs showing Oswald with a rifle and pistol.
“Lane then discusses fifteen assertions of Oswald’s guilt as presented by Dallas D.A. Henry Wade. Commenting on these assertions, Lane states that only one witness saw a man at the window of the Book Depository and that this person could not identify Oswald; that Oswald’s palm prints were not on the rifle; that paraffin tests show Oswald had not fired a rifle; Lane discusses the confusion as to the make of the rifle involved; the revelation of the alias Hidell; Oswald’s presence on the second floor of the Depository immediately after the shooting; the entry of the bullets that killed the President; the number of shots fired; Oswald’s marksmanship; Lane asks why Oswald took a bus and a taxi to get his jacket; and discusses the discrepancy of the name of the taxi driver. Lane also discusses the Tippit shooting.
“Lane then calls for an investigation of the people on the overpass at the time of the shooting; he questions the inactivity of RFK; asks why Oswald was not watched; and why the Secret Service Chief was not in Dallas at the time of the President’s death. Lane discusses the motive for the assassination, “and says he thinks Oswald’s Marxism was not the motive for the killing.” [73]
According to the FBI, Lane concludes his remarks by stating that he will continue to raise these questions concerning the Oswald case “no matter what the obstacles or cost involved, and in his speeches, he will continue to tell the American people what happened in Dallas.” [74]
Reed College, Oregon
One of Lane’s west-coast stops was at Bottsford Hall on the campus of Reed College, Portland, OR., where Lane addressed an audience of four to five-hundred people.
The FBI reported that “Reed College has a long record of hostility and opposition to the FBI.” The meeting which Lane addressed was sponsored by the Students for Civil Liberties (SCL) which is an organization not formally sponsored by the College administration, but is reportedly comprised of Reed College students of progressive and radical political opinions. [75]
According to the FBI, the Students for Civil Liberties (SCL) was first organized in December, 1961. In February, 1963, FBI sources reported that Peter Bergel, the chairman of the executive board who met with Herbert Aptheker (who was elected to the National Committee of the Communist Party USA at its 17th annual convention in Dec. 1969) on April 24, 1962, on campus to discuss the aims and theories of the Communist Party; Mary Coe, who attended various Communist Party sponsored functions during 1961-62; Barbara Hershey; Kenneth Margolis, who also met with Herbert Aptheker on April 24, 1962, on campus to discuss the aims and theories of the Communist Party; and Mary Yeoman, all current students, were elected to the executive board of SCL. [76]
An FBI source “noted that throughout his entire talk, Lane made no comment whatsoever relative to Oswald’s alleged Marxist background. Instead, he devoted virtually all of his remarks to exhibiting photographs and disproving evidence collected against Oswald.” (emphasis added) [77]
Mark Lane told students at Reed College that he had a tape recording made by the only witness to the Tippit killing – Helen Louise Markham. In this tape, Markham stated that “the man who shot the officer was short and had bushy hair. She said she had told the police and the FBI this, but that they had made her stick to the description of Oswald, who was taller and had different hair coloring and length. Not only was there the mystery of the shorter man, Lane continued, but another male in the Dallas area was shot, after the assassination, by a short, bushy-haired man, who was picked up by the police, only to be released. In addition, there was a woman who was being held by the police in connection with this incident, and the morning after she was booked in the police station, she was found hanging in her cell, an apparent suicide.” [78]
Students of the assassination will recognize the unnamed persons Lane referred to as Warren A. Reynolds, who was shot by an unnamed person (although Dallas police suspected Darrell Wayne Garner as the gunman), and Nancy Jane Mooney (aka Betty MacDonald) who provided an alibi for Garner, then, after being picked up on unrelated charges, hung herself in her jail cell.
Investigation showed that the shooting of Reynolds was probably related to a car deal between Reynolds’ brother and Garner gone bad and that Mooney had attempted suicide twice before in the six weeks leading up to her death. [79]
Furthermore, contrary to Lane’s assertion (in what was an obvious attempt to connect Markham’s alleged description of Tippit’s killer with Reynolds’ assailant), Warren Reynold’s never described his assailant as being “a short, bushy-haired man.”
Three days after Lane’s Reed College appearance, Helen Markham testified before the Warren Commission. [80] Asked if she ever spoke to a man named Mark Lane, Markham denied knowing Lane or speaking to him. [81] She did remember two reporters – one from a French newspaper and one from Life magazine – who came to her place of employment at the Eatwell Café and interviewed her in the presence of her boss, James Gambolis, a Greek, who served as translator for the French reporter. [82] Markham’s denial of ever having spoken to Lane set into motion a renewed effort by the Warren Commission to obtain the tape-recording Lane claimed to possess.
The 1964 European Tour
On March 23, 1964, Lane applied for a passport at the San Francisco Passport Agency. His application indicated he planned to depart by air about April 1, 1964, to visit England, France, Hungary, Italy, Denmark, and Czechoslovakia for a stay of seventeen days to attend the convention of International Association of Democratic Lawyers and to lecture. [83]
Indeed, on April 1, 1964, Mark Lane departed Kennedy International Airport, New York, aboard KLM Flight No.642 to Amsterdam, Holland, [84] with a final destination the following day to Budapest, Hungary, via KLM Flight No.281. [85]
Budapest, Hungary
On April 5, Lane spoke at the International Association of Democratic Lawyers (IADL) in Budapest, Hungary. The IADL was described by the HCUA as “an international communist front organization.” According to U.S. State Department sources, Lane reportedly “attacked the United States and its foreign policy. Lane was described by newsman from Western countries as being ‘vitriolic’ and ‘vituperative’ against this country. Lane also stated that he was available for lectures on his version of the assassination of President Kennedy. Lane was also reported as having asked for the formation of an international commission to investigate the assassination of President Kennedy.” The Department of State advised that press reports in Uganda indicated that the IADL decided to establish such a commission. [86]
A Reuters press dispatch stated Lane “claimed that several persons took part in the deed. This statement was heartily applauded by numerous persons. Lane also stated that one witness was shot, a girl who had been interrogated by the police committed suicide, and the death weapon had been later ‘officially altered.’” [87]
Lane also reportedly “describes U.S. as “most imperialistic and militarily aggressive country in world.” One western reporter asserts he “saw photostatic copies of FBI investigation reports” which Lane was using in attempts to document his charges that Kennedy’s killer was still at large and that the Oswald case is a frameup.” The State Department noted: “In view of possible improper use official U.S. documents in Lane’s activities here, Department may wish pass this information to appropriate authorities.” [88]
An internal FBI report subsequently stated: “It seems highly unlikely that Lane would have copies of FBI reports. In a speech made by him at Reed College, Portland Oregon, on 3-23-64, he stated that he had trouble obtaining complete transcript of his testimony from the Warren Commission and when he did, he had to sign that he was aware he was in possession of ‘Top Secret’ material. It is possible that the newsman was referring to this transcript rather than FBI reports.” However, due to the serious nature of the allegation, the FBI requested that Lane be contacted upon his return to the U.S. and “demand the return of any FBI investigative reports.” [89]
Three days after his appearance in Budapest, Nepszabadsag carried a six-column feature article by Anna Bebrits based on an interview with Mark Lane. The article stated that “Lane is in possession of many data and depositions which disprove the version of the FBI and the Dallas Police about the murder. According to the reporter, Lane was forced to use various forums such as the Federation of Democratic Lawyers to spread the truth about the case because the press in the U.S. has denied him the opportunity to present the true evidence to the public.” [90]
Rome, Italy
On April 6, 1964, Lane arrived in Rome, Italy, from Budapest, Hungary, and checked in at the Hotel Pace Elvesia in Rome. His hotel expenses were paid for by Gianfranco Corsini, a well-known journalist of Paese Sera, a known publication of the Communist Party of Italy. [91]
On April 9, Lane held a press conference at the Hotel Pace Elvezia in Rome. Present at the conference were eighteen Italian and foreign newsmen. [92] He told the reporters that no court could convict Oswald on the “evidence” so far produced by the public prosecution. Lane said he had been invited to Budapest to give his version, in the Hungarian capital, of the death of Kennedy.
Actually, Lane went to Budapest to take part in the congress of the International Association of Democratic Jurists, which was held there earlier in April. The Italian section of the congress was presided over by Communist senator Umberto Terracini.
Lane added that he intended to continue his European trip because he realized that “there is much more freedom outside of the United States.” [93]
Copenhagen, Denmark
On April 10, 1964, a day after arriving in Denmark from Rome, Mark Lane delivered a lecture to the Students’ Union in Copenhagen concerning the assassination of JFK. An FBI informant advised that a known Danish Communist, Jorgen Theilgaard Jacobsen, a lawyer, born April 11, 1919, took the initiative in forming a Danish committee for the main purpose of obtaining information on the continued investigations into the assassination. Further, this committee intends to have translated and published a book which Lane is currently writing on Oswald’s innocence in the murder.
Jacobsen and Lane became acquainted while attending the Congress of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers in Budapest, Hungary, and they reportedly intended to continue their contacts, as Lane would supply the Danish Committee with all new material on the assassination. [94]
According to an FBI report, the Danish Mark Lane Committee “comprised a total of sixteen individuals: the founder, Jorgen Jacobsen, a known Communist, whereas the others mainly belonged to the cultural left-wing literary circles. However, the activities of the Committee, mainly based on Mark Lane’s inquiries in the United States, failed to bring forth any sensational disclosures. The work of the American authorities on the case was, on the other hand, criticized and the report of the Warren Commission was denounced as a fraud.” [95]
On April 13, 1964, Lane gave a speech before the Danish Students’ Association in Copenhagen. The Danish tabloid Elstra Bladet, which invited Lane, wrote in an editorial: “There is obviously much to hide, many who must be forced to silence. But the American attorney Mark Lane… is dauntless and fearless. He will probably be among those who, we hope, will get to the truth. And the truth must be found, if we in Western Europe are to continue to recognize the United States as the mightiest and leading country among democracies.” [96]
The next day, the Danish Tabloid B.T., an affiliate of Berlingske Tidende, wrote: “Mark Lane is one of these nice men who always wants to do the right thing, which, however, does not always mean that they do it. Find one of the things which are near to his heart, and Mark Lane will always be willing to lead a protest demonstration down Fifth Avenue, greedy landlords, racial discrimination in the schools, negligence of the poor – Mark Lane will be there. He is not without logic and the power of conviction. As the minutes ticked off last night in the Students’ Association, Oswald became gradually clean, cleaner, almost cleanest, and did the audience like it! Wasn’t it like one had known all the time without knowing too much? It might be better to wait until the Warren Commission has made its verdict. There will be an end to the investigation and why anticipate the events?” [97]
Following speeches in Denmark, Lane flew to London and then onto Amsterdam, Holland. [98]
While there, the Spanish language newspaper HOY devoted a full-page article entitled “Sensational Revelations about the Assassination of Kennedy,” a verbatim transcript of a radio interview between Mark Lane and Karel Kyncl, correspondent for Radio Prague in New York. Subheadings of the article include: Oswald did not kill Tippit; The shots not fired from the book warehouse; FBI pressure on witnesses; Another rifle and another Oswald; The meeting of the real assassins; Oswald’s fingerprints were not there; The atmosphere in Dallas? Fascism; and A book which the FBI will not like. [99]
On April 20, 1964, Mark Lane returned to the U.S. from Europe aboard Scandinavia Airlines Flight No.911, arriving in New York at 5:11 p.m. [100] Upon arrival, Lane was greeted by the press and friends. FBI agents, anxious to determine if Lane was in possession of classified documents reported in the foreign press, were present but decided not to make contact with Lane due to the presence of press and family. [101]
More domestic speeches
Over the next few days, Lane spoke at various locations throughout the United States including Annie Laws Auditorium at the University of Cincinnati, sponsored by the campus group Students for Constitutional Freedom; the First Unitarian Church of Cincinnati; [102] the auditorium of the Ohio Museum of Natural History, Columbus, OH., sponsored by the Students for Liberal Action (SLA), a recognized organization on the campus of Ohio State University; [103] to a crowd of about 200 in the Synder Memorial Building, University of Toledo, Toledo, OH., under the auspices of the Toledo Humanist Society; [104] to a group of about 350 students at the Student Union Building at the University of Texas, Austin, TX., the speech being sponsored by the Students for a Democratic Society, a group formed in 1962 and affiliated with the League for Industrial Democracy, a Communist front group; [105] at Felgar Hall on the campus of the University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK., also sponsored by Students for a Democratic Society; [106] to the W.E.B. Du Bois Club of San Francisco at California Hall, San Francisco; the communist youth organization operated by the Communist Party USA; [107] and for over four hours to about 1,500 students and faculty members at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA.
An FBI source stated that Lane spent “much time in relating his own encounters with various government agencies in an apparent effort to win sympathy for himself from his audience.” [108]
FBI approaches Lane
On April 29, 1964, FBI agents William E. Folkner and John Di Marchi approached Mark Lane’s residence in the rain at 10:00 a.m. with the idea of interviewing him in his apartment regarding his alleged possession of FBI documents.
As they approached, Lane emerged from his apartment and knowing he would be departing NYC later that day, the agents decided to interview him outside his apartment. The agents identified themselves, advised him that it has been alleged that he had FBI documents in his possession and asked if he in fact did have any such documents.
Lane was at first nervous, but quickly regained his composure. Lane then asked who made the allegation and the agents told him a ‘confidential source.’ Of course, the claim had been published in the foreign press while he was abroad.
Lane told the agents that any information concerning his testimony before the Warren Commission could be obtained from the commission. The agents advised Lane that they were not interested in his testimony, but only in whether he had the alleged FBI documents. Lane told them that any information he possessed had been discussed publicly by him under oath with the Commission and he presumed the FBI and Commission were working together.
Lane then “protested this interview by Special Agents… declaring that such an approach could be expected in a totalitarian state.” Lane advised that he thought that information would be sought by letter from Director Hoover and that if Hoover wanted the information, he should write him a letter.
The FBI agents then demanded that if Lane had any FBI documents, he should produce them. Lane told them to write a letter, and departed in a taxicab at 10:15 a.m.
At 1:00 p.m., that afternoon, the New York FBI office was advised that Lane had contacted the New York Times and told them that he was writing a letter of complaint to the Warren Commission about being “accosted by FBI agents on the street in front of his home in the rain.”
Lane told the Times that “such an interview was the action of a police state…” Lane stated that he felt that “in a democratic society such inquiries should be made by letter to an attorney and not by accosting an individual on the street.” [109]
Later that same day, in a letter to Warren Commission chief counsel J. Lee Rankin, Mark Lane apologized for his delay in revealing his source for the Weissman-Ruby-Tippit allegation, but wrote he has just returned from abroad and will do so as soon as possible, although he hopes the Commission doesn’t invoke its power of subpoena if he is unable to secure the permission of his source, and thereby “violate a moral commitment.”
He also expressed surprise that the Commission needed his recorded statements from Helen Markham suggesting they get their own, and then complained about being “accosted” by FBI agents outside his home that morning. [110]
Lane then claimed, “I have now secured information proving that the story widely circulated throughout the United States on February 10 that there was an eyewitness, a Negro janitor, who actually saw Oswald pull the trigger, was deliberately planted by an agent of the Secret Service. I would suggest that your Commission should show less concern with the sources of my information and more concern with the harassment of an American citizen by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. May I also suggest that you might seek to determine why an agent of the U.S. Secret Service deliberately planted a false story with the media. Should you be interested in conducting an investigation, I will make known to you all the details, including the names and numbers of the FBI agents and the names of the persons involved in the transmission of the false news story.” [111]
The letter was dictated to Deirdre Griswold, secretary of the Citizens Committee of Inquiry (CCI) and long-time member of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), but Lane did not bother to read it. Griswold then signed the letter herself, for Lane. [112]
 |
The false story
The “false news story” Lane spoke of was a reference to a Thayer Waldo front-page article published in the morning edition of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram on February 10, 1964, in which Waldo claimed that an unnamed “informed source” told him that a Negro janitor, employed at the Texas School Book Depository, saw Oswald fire the shots that killed the President and Governor Connally. According to Waldo, the man was put into protective custody and would be testifying before the Warren Commission in Washington. [113]
The story first broke the night before (February 9), when a news flash was broadcast about the forthcoming article on WBAP-TV in Dallas-Fort Worth. [114]
The FBI immediately contacted the Fort Worth Star-Telegram’s managing editor who told them that the original story published in the first edition was being changed and that it would be “somewhat watered down” for the later morning edition. [115]
The article was indeed altered, significantly, for the late morning edition. The original story claimed that the janitor was looking out a sixth-floor window at the presidential motorcade when “he heard a shot, very loud and close. Jumping back, he saw Oswald at the next window, kneeling, with a rifle aimed at the street below. The [janitor] said he turned and ran to a spot near the door leading to the stairway, where some empty crates were piled, and crouched behind these.” The janitor said the second shot was fired as he ran toward the crates and the third while he was hidden behind them. He said that Oswald almost stepped on him as he ran past, dropped the rifle, and bolted down the stairs. [116]
According to the second edition, the unnamed source of the story called the Star-Telegram to offer several revisions to his original story. He reportedly said the janitor was actually on the fifth-floor at the time of the shooting, when he heard the shots, but did not see who fired them. The janitor reportedly hid behind some crates when heard footsteps coming down the stairs immediately after the shooting. The janitor then reportedly identified the man coming down the stairs as Oswald. [117]
The second edition article also noted that Justice Department spokesman Edwin O. Guthman, Warren Commission Chief Counsel J. Lee Rankin, Dallas County Sheriff W.E. “Bill” Decker, Dallas Police Chief Jesse E. Curry, and Texas State Attorney General Waggoner Carr all denied any knowledge of anyone being held in protective custody. [118]
At the time of the first edition’s appearance, the FBI noted that previous investigation identified three Negro employees, Harold Dean Norman, James Jarman and Bonnie Ray Williams, as being on the fifth floor of the TSBD at the time of the assassination and that they heard the shots but did not see the shooter. The FBI also noted that previous investigation has established that the only Negro janitor working at the TSBD on November 22 was Eddie Piper, who was on the first floor at the time of the shooting. [119]
After the second edition with the revised article appeared on February 10, the FBI again contacted Star-Telegram managing editor Jack Butler who told them that his newspaper was “aghast” at the developments of the story and was now of the opinion that the unnamed source was wrong. Butler told the FBI that Waldo’s source for the story did not know the name of the eyewitness. [120]
On February 11, 1964, the FBI interviewed Thayer Waldo who refused to identify his source but added that anybody in his business would accept his source as “pure gold” and that while he didn’t take notes during his conversation with the source, he went directly to his newspaper and wrote up the story immediately. Waldo claimed that after the original story appeared, the source called him on the telephone and that the only change in the story was the fact that the eyewitness was not on the sixth floor but on the fifth floor. [121]
Waldo’s explanation was, of course, disingenuous at best, since the original story was that the alleged eyewitness was only a few feet away when he saw Oswald shooting from the sniper’s nest!
Three days after the article appeared, the FBI interviewed Lieutenant Jack Revill, Special Service Bureau (SSB), Dallas Police Department, who opined that the witnesses referred to in the article may possibly be Charles Douglas Givens, a black male who had been handled by the SSB in the past on a marijuana charge. Revill said that he believed that Givens would change his story for money but noted that Givens was interviewed immediately after the assassination and he stated that he wasn’t even in the TSBD at the time of the assassination. [122]
No further investigation into the incident was conducted until Mark Lane pushed it back into the headlines with a National Guardian article published on May 9. (See below: “The Oswald case: A New Angle”)
Lane makes more hay
During the mid-afternoon of April 30, 1964, Mark Lane spoke for two-and-a-half hours at Emerson Hall, Room D, on the campus of Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. Lane’s speech was sponsored by the Harvard-Radcliffe Socialist Club, a university approved student organization, whose members favor a Socialist form of government and economy in the United States and whose speakers favor such a program. Lane began his speech by stating that “he had been ‘accosted’ by two FBI agents the day before, as he left his New York residence. The two agents ‘surrounded’ Lane, asking him if he had in his possession illegally secured documents from the files of the FBI. Lane told the FBI agents that he had turned over all information he had to the WC, and when questioned further about the documents told them he didn’t know what they were talking about and left in a cab. [123] With regard to Helen Markham, “Lane stated that Markham is no longer residing at her address in Dallas and has disappeared.” [124] At the conclusion of the lecture, copies of the National Guardian’s eight-page, tabloid-style pamphlet, based largely on Lane’s five-page defense brief, was passed out. [125]
At 8:30 p.m. that night, Lane made an appearance at Schwartz Auditorium, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA., under the sponsorship of the Students Political, Education and Action Committee, an approved undergraduate organization. Among his usual comments, Lane stated “that immediately after the [Tippit] shooting the Dallas Police Department issued an alert describing the killer of Tippit as a white male, 5’9” to 5’10” tall, slender, blond receding hair, which description fits Oswald. However, Lane stated he later went to Dallas and interviewed the only eyewitness to the Tippit shooting, a Mrs. Helen L. Markham, who at first would not talk to him saying she had been cautioned not to discuss the matter by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Secret Service, and the Dallas Police Department. Lane said she finally agreed to talk to him when he convinced her he was to use her story in his testimony before the Warren Commission. In her statement to him, she described Tippit’s killer as a short stocky white male, with bushy hair, which description did not fit Oswald. Attorney Lane claims that Mrs. Markham has now mysteriously disappeared.” [126]
Later that night, at 10:00 p.m., Lane appeared on the Jerry Williams radio program, WMEX, Boston, MA. The FBI later reported: “In a discussion concerning press coverage of his investigation, Lane said he could not understand why more of his statements had not been made available to the American people. In this regard he stated he had given information which he considered newsworthy to friends of his in the press and that his information had not been printed.” Lane mentioned that an unidentified friend was able to get him copies of all of the affidavits in the Dallas D.A.’s office – including the results of a paraffin test. [127]
During the radio program’s Q & A session, callers asked:
(Q) Could leftists jump onto your band wagon to show a right-wing plot?
(A) No one will influence me.
(Q) They say that a gun was found on Oswald in the theater. Did he have a gun there?
(A) I don’t know.
(Q) You are giving out facts. Everything you say is wrong. You say the government, police, and FBI are all wrong. You are skillful. You haven’t yet answered a question regarding circumstantial evidence. You are trying to castigate the government and the Warren Commission. I never heard such a harangue. What’s your motivation?
(A) I am deeply concerned that there has been improper investigation, no due process, no rights of individuals. [128]
Meanwhile, in a letter on this same date, Warren Commission chief counsel J. Lee Rankin replied to Mark Lane’s letter of April 29, again asking for all information Lane may possess about the Secret Service negro janitor eyewitness allegation, his claims about Helen Markham (which she had denied), and the source of the Weissman-Ruby-Tippit allegation. [129]
Lane continues promoting his case
On May 1, 1964, Mark Lane spoke to 400 students at Westfield State College, Westfield, MA. [130]
Three days later, Lane addressed approximately 200 persons in attendance at Brown University, Providence, RI., at the invitation of the freshman class. Lane stated that he was amazed at “the comparative ignorance of students” concerning the assassination. Lane claimed the massive pre-trial publicity would have prevented Oswald from getting a fair trial anywhere in the country, was critical of the present investigation, claimed pictures of Oswald holding a rifle and pistol were forged, commented on theories of where the shots came from, and criticized the handling of medical testimony. [131]
On May 6, 1964, Mark Lane spoke at Upsala College, East Orange, NJ., at the request of the Student Council of Upsala College. Approximately 200-300 people attended. Lane continued to imply that there was “a conspiracy by authorities to find Oswald guilty of the assassination. Lane also mentioned that he had been approached by two individuals on the street recently who identified themselves as FBI agents and accused him of taking or stealing FBI documents.” [132]
More fun with the Commission
In a letter that same date (May 6), Mark Lane informed Warren Commission chief counsel J. Lee Rankin that he (Lane) was in receipt of Rankin’s letter of April 30 in which he requested further information regarding the story involving a Negro janitor watching Oswald shoot Kennedy. Lane wrote, “I am gratified that you are interested in a false statement deliberately planted by an agent of the Secret Service, inasmuch as we have been led to believe that the Commission is relying upon the accuracy of the statements made by investigatory agencies including the Secret Service. Under such circumstances, it seems to me that a thorough investigation of the false statement made by the agent of the Secret Service is required.” [133]
However, Lane didn’t provide Rankin with the information he requested to actually launch an investigation into the allegation – namely Lane’s source for his own charge that the information was “deliberately” planted. Instead, Lane offered to “present such information while I am under oath” and stated that he would be “happy to fly to Washington to testify before the Commission,” which seemed to be his real motive for making the charge publicly, then withholding the source in exchange for a chance to grandstand before the Commission.
In a further series of stall tactics, Lane also claimed to still be in the process of securing permission to release the name of the source of the alleged Weissman-Ruby-Tippit meeting (which so far has dragged on for seven weeks since Rankin first requested the information); and expressed surprise that Mrs. Helen Markham had denied speaking to Lane via telephone. Then, Lane had the audacity to suggest that perhaps, Mrs. Markham should be brought up on perjury charges for making false statements – charges that apparently would be based solely on Lane’s word, since to date he had refused to turn over the audio recording he possessed of his telephone conversation with her – the only proof of what Markham actually said. [134]
The Oswald Case: A New Angle
But of course, Mark Lane had no real interest in helping the Commission with their investigation. His focus was on how he could best promote himself and his cause – the exoneration of Lee Harvey Oswald. For his latest turn of the screw, Lane turned to an old ally.
On May 9, 1964, three days after blowing off Rankin, the progressive newsweekly National Guardian published an article entitled “Oswald case: A new angle,” in which Mark Lane charged the Secret Service with “deliberately planting a false story in the press in order to cast further guilt on Lee Oswald.” [135]
The “false story” was a reference to the Thayer Waldo article published in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram on February 10, 1964. (See: “The false story” above) [136]
Lane claimed that the janitor in the story was the invention of the Secret Service; that the story broke the same day that Marguerite Oswald was to appear before the Commission (“obviously calculated to prevent press coverage of any witness who was going to raise doubts about Oswald’s guilt,” according to Lane); and that Lane was willing to testify under oath in Washington as to the veracity of his charge. [137]
The Guardian article provided a detailed account of what reporter Thayer Waldo was reportedly told by Secret Service agent Mike Howard and his brother Pat Howard, a Tarrant County deputy sheriff, during a car ride back to Fort Worth after the trio dropped off Marguerite Oswald at Love Field for her flight to Washington to testify.
Lane told the Guardian that he wouldn’t reveal his source for all the detail in the article – although it seems obvious to anyone that it had to be either Waldo or Howard – but would reveal the source of his information if called to testify.
The Warren Commission responds
In a letter dated April 12, 1964, Warren Commission chief counsel J. Lee Rankin informed Mark Lane that it would be satisfactory for him (Lane) to submit a letter detailing the alleged false story attributed to the Secret Service; details of his encounter with FBI agents (mentioned in his (April 29 letter); any documentation (“including tape recordings”) that supports his claim that he interviewed Helen Markham; and the source of the claim that there was a meeting between Weissman-Ruby-Tippit. [138]
Six days later, Lane replied to Rankin advising him of the details surrounding his claim that the Secret Service planted a false story in the press; details of his encounter with FBI agents outside his home in the rain; and, despite Rankin’s continued request, that he is still “not now in a position to reveal the name” of his source for the Weissman-Ruby-Tippit allegation. Of particular interest, Lane made no mention of the recording of his telephone conversation with Helen Markham. [139]
Armed with Lane’s letter, Rankin launches an FBI investigation into Mike Howard, Pat Howard, and Thayer Waldo. [140]
Six days later, on May 28, 1964, Fort Worth Star-Telegram reporter Thayer Waldo signed an affidavit that said that it was Mark Lane who had requested he escort Marguerite Oswald to Love Field for her flight to Washington, DC. It was during the return trip, with Secret Service agent Mike Howard and his brother, Tarrant County Deputy Sheriff Pat Howard, that the conversation about the janitor came up. [141]
According to Thayer Waldo’s affidavit, on April 23, 1964 – ten weeks after Waldo’s article appeared in the Star-Telegram – Mark Lane telephoned Waldo, and said he was in town to give a speech at the University of Texas at Austin, and wanted to meet with him. Lane said he was conducting an investigation on ‘four or five important angles’ of the Kennedy-Oswald-Ruby case and was particularly interested to know further details about the janitor story. [142]
Waldo wrote in his affidavit that Lane’s “manner of speaking” led him to believe that anything he told or showed Lane would be held in confidence. After showing Lane the article, Lane asked for his source. “Believing this to be a lawyer’s request with normal legal discretion,” Waldo wrote, “I told him the complete story.” [143]
Two weeks later, Waldo received a call from Marguerite Oswald. She asked if he could come to her house, she had some important things to show him. One of the items she showed him was a copy of the National Guardian for May 9, 1964. There, in a front-page story, Mark Lane was quoted revealing the complete story Waldo had told him in confidence. [144]
The FBI also interviewed Mike Howard and his brother Pat. Both denied that they had told Waldo that the Negro male had actually witnessed Oswald shooting at the president. [145]
Finally, the FBI interviewed Charles Douglas Givens, who was no doubt the eyewitness referred to in Waldo’s story. Givens told the FBI that he was working on the sixth-floor of the TSBD and went to the first-floor at about 11:30 a.m. to wash his hands. He recalled returning to the sixth-floor at about 11:45 a.m. to get his cigarettes that he had left there. It was at this time that he saw Lee Harvey Oswald (known to him as ‘Lee’) standing in the southeast corner of the building (the same location as the sniper’s nest) holding a clipboard with orders on it. Givens asked Oswald if he was coming down for lunch and Oswald replied, “No, not now.” Givens said that he got on the freight elevator and as he was leaving the sixth-floor, Oswald yelled at him to close the gates on the elevator so that he, Oswald, could call the elevator back to the sixth floor. [146]
Givens said that he left the building about 12:00 noon and walked over to Main and Records Street with two friends and viewed the motorcade as it passed. Shortly thereafter, Givens heard three shots coming from the direction of the TSBD. He walked back to the building but was not allowed in by police. He stood across the street with the crowd and watched the police activities until about 1:30 or 2:00 p.m., when he was spotted by Dallas Police Homicide Detective Jesse Dawson who told him, “We’ve been looking for you.” Dawson transported Givens to police headquarters where he gave a statement and was released. Givens told the FBI that at no time was he in protective custody. [147]
While it is hard to believe that Thayer Waldo could have gotten the story Mike and Pat Howard told him so messed up, his reputation was not particularly stellar. Information surfaced during the 1968 Garrison investigation which indicated that Waldo “had the reputation of being unreliable and an unsavory character,” and that he was a card-carrying member of the Communist Party. [148]
The FBI didn’t particularly believe the Howard brothers were telling the complete truth either, pointing out that when interviewed both men said they didn’t realize that Thayer Waldo was a newspaper reporter. Yet Pat Howard mentioned that Marguerite Oswald identified Waldo as a reporter for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram prior to leaving for Love Field. [149]
Either way, Mark Lane’s charge that Secret Service agent Mike Howard “deliberately planted” a false story in the press, particularly to obscure press coverage about Marguerite Oswald’s testimony to the Warren Commission, is patently absurd.
Lane continues to pound the table
While the Warren Commission was busy investigating the Thayer Waldo story, Lane continued to publicly berate the commission and its staff.
In mid-May, Mark Lane spoke at the Premise Theater in New York City to an overflow crowd (room capacity: 183). Lane charged that the Warren Commission was composed of Dixiecrats and former FBI and CIA members; that Senator Richard B. Russell of Georgia, and Hale Boggs of Louisiana, were two racists; that representing the CIA was Allen Dulles, and that the spokesman for the FBI was John J. McCloy. The only one with integrity, according to Lane, was Senator John Sherman Cooper from Kentucky. [150]
Lane also claimed that “our news media helped convict Lee Oswald moments after he was arrested, long before the trial. The Dallas Police Department, the FBI and the Secret Service are responsible for this.” Lane stated: “Everywhere I have spoken, in Europe or in the United States, everyone believes that Oswald was innocent or part of a plot.” Lane further stated: “Of all the briefs and releases I submitted the National Guardian has been the only one to present anything. Yet, I have been able to have material printed in Japan, Africa, Europe, etc., but here in the United States no one printed anything relating to Oswald’s defense.” [151]
Furthermore, Lane said: “How about Reynolds, the witness to Officer Tippit’s death? He was shot with a rifle in the head. He still lives but no longer speaks. That man that shot him, a hood, produced an alibi, one of Ruby’s strippers who claims she was with him. This same woman was later found hung in the Dallas jail, an alleged suicide.” [152]
A second European tour
On May 22, 1964, Mark Lane left New York City again for a six-week speaking tour of Europe which included stops at Copenhagen and Arhus, Demark; Paris, France; Brussels; London; Milan; Florence, and Rome. [153] In Italy, Lane visit was supported and funded by elements of the Italian Communist Party. [154]
Three days later, on May 25, Mark Lane delivered an afternoon lecture in Copenhagen, Denmark, at a meeting organized by the Lawyers’ Debating Club. In the evening, Lane delivered a lecture in Aarhus, Denmark, at a meeting organized by the Students’ Association and the daily newspaper Demokraten. An FBI informant advised that Lane’s lectures were similar to previous ones in that Lane showed why in his opinion Oswald could not have been the assassin. Lane also stated during his lectures that he had “visited Dallas, Texas, five times; that he was under surveillance by the FBI, which tapped his telephones, and that he was happy to have the opportunity of pleading the cause in Europe as he had gained the impression that this was being reported by the press in the United States.” [155]
On June 4, 1964, The Guardian newspaper, published in Manchester, England, contained an article announcing the formation of a “Who Killed Kennedy Committee,” to “support and publicize the activities of New York Attorney Mark Lane.” According to the article: “In spite of fears for his safety, Lane recently spoke to a large meeting in Dallas itself. Invitations to join the committee are being sent out by Bertrand Russell who will meet him for the first-time next week during Lane’s four day visit to London. The letters of invitation say that the evidence presented by Lane to the Warren Commission is ‘so startling and so impressive’ that it needs to be put before the British public until the questions he raises have been satisfactorily answered. Lame, who is persuaded of Oswald’s probable innocence refuses to speculate about the identity of the true killers. Sir Compton Mackenzie and Mr. J.B. Priestley are among those who have agreed to join the committee, which will compliment a similar American committee.” [156]
Mark Lane – Crusader, Martyr and Author?
Two weeks later, The London Tribune published an article based on an interview with Mark Lane. In a foreword, by Caroline Wedgwood Benn (a member of the British “Who Killed Kennedy Committee”), Lane was declared a champion of truth: “[Mark Lane] never meant to make a crusade out of the case. But his investigation turned up such inconsistencies in evidence, such discrepancies in official facts and – saddest of all – such selective suppression of news, that he felt, as Emile Zola must have felt, that he had to go on. It has not been easy. As the following transcript of an interview with Tribune staff shows, the treatment of Mark Lane himself is now a story developing in its own right. Although it is difficult not to feel indignant about official attempts to hinder his investigations, and difficult to see how justice can be seen to be served by such a politically loaded Commission sitting in secret on such a politically loaded issue, the real point is this: Mark Lane has collected together with great labor enough facts – hard facts that can be documented, that he barely sketches here – to prove there exists enough doubt about the official explanation of the assassination to justify continuing investigation until all the questions raised by these facts have been answered.”
In the body of the article itself, Lane, it is said, “cannot be idly dismissed as a Communist stooge,” offering his 14-years as a criminal lawyer and his “playing a leading part in breaking the Tammany Hall stranglehold on Democratic politics in NYC, aided by Robert F. Kennedy” as proof.
Lane is reportedly angry “about the composition of the Warren Commission – and the string of misleading statements, and direct lies that have emanated from it. He is angry about the suppression of evidence and the efforts that are being made to silence him.” Unnamed electronic experts claim they have “verified that Mr. Lane’s home and business telephones are being tapped.” The FBI reportedly told the authorities of “a Massachusetts college that if Mr. Lane were allowed to speak to the students, two FBI agents would be present to take notes, and that agents had been assigned to follow him all over the country.”
Lane reiterated how he was stopped by two FBI agents outside his home, this time claiming that “they demanded the return of all documents which, they said, had been taken illegally from the FBI.” Lane reiterated his claims about the rifle found, forged photographs, and the like. With regard to the Tippit shooting, Lane claimed that “Helen Markham was the only witness to the killing of Police Officer Tippett (sic). It was said that her only description of the killer was that he was a young white man. But she maintains that she gave a complete description of the killer as ‘short, stocky and with bushy hair’,” a description dissimilar from Oswald.
“I would have loved to have fought that case,” said Mr. Lane. “There was a built-in case for an acquittal.” Lane added: “The majority of Americans are convinced that Oswald killed the President. Only students and a handful of others have had a chance to hear the full facts.” The London Tribune asks, “Will the full facts ever be known?” Lane, suggests that a book commissioned by Mrs. Kennedy may contain the truth, while the Tribune notes that Lane “is also writing a book.” [157]
But Lane wasn’t done with the false charges and absurd claims. He had an eager and willing European audience and a growing group of discontented young minds gathered at American colleges willing to be indoctrinated with left-wing, communist-grounded poppycock.
Lane testifies again
A few days after returning to the United States from his European speaking tour, Mark Lane appeared for a second time before the Warren Commission. In fact, the Commission paid Lane’s expenses to return from Europe so that he could testify in a timely manner. [158]
Lane acknowledged that he had a tape recording of his telephone interview with Helen Markham (portions of which he had been playing during his lectures). [159] However, he still refused to say whether he was the one who made the tape-recording (in fact, he had); refused to turn over the recording or a transcript of the recording, citing attorney-client privilege (supposedly based on his three-month long representation of Marguerite Oswald); insisted that the Warren Commission arrange a confrontation between himself and Markham, to get at the truth rather than reveal the recording; and generally continued to handicap the Commission’s work. [160]
Near the end of his testimony, Chief Justice Earl Warren admonished Lane this way: “We are trying to get information about these different things that you consider vital in the assassination of the President. And it is a matter of great concern to the Commission that you are unwilling to tell us about those things that you consider bear upon the guilt or innocence of Lee Harvey Oswald. And it handicaps us greatly in what we are trying to do, because of the things that you do say when you are away from the Commission, and then when you refuse to testify before us as to those very things that you discuss in public.” [161]
It turns out that the real reason that Lane refused to turn over the tape recording was because he feared he might be prosecuted.
The day after he appeared before the Commission, Lane wrote a letter, stating in part: “I must confess that the questions put to me yesterday on behalf of the Commission raised serious doubts in my mind as to the motives of the Commission in pressing me for the tape. When a question is asked as to whether or not I or anyone else secured the permission of Mrs. Markham to make the tape recording, one concludes that it may be possible that the query was proposed not for the purpose of seeing information to assist the Commission but for determining whether or not the person who made the recording should be criminally prosecuted. The Commission, therefore, has itself constructed a new obstacle, I hope inadvertently, to our making the tape available.” [162]
Then, in typical Mark Lane fashion, Lane made a public statement five days later through his “Citizens Committee of Inquiry” accusing the Commission of rejecting any evidence tending to show that Oswald was not the sole assassin of President Kennedy. Lane stated that he “does not claim Oswald was entirely out of the assassination picture, but only that he was ‘not the only assassin.’“ Lane claimed that the Commission was laying the ground for his prosecution for making a tape recording [of Helen Markham] and said that “the commission deliberately placed an obstacle to introducing the recording as evidence.” For that reason, he refused to give the Commission the tape recording. Lane announced that “although the Warren Commission seeks to suppress that testimony, he plans to arrange the playing of the recorded conversation with Mrs. Markham to newsmen sometime this month.” [163]
Two days after his public announcement, the FBI learned through an informant that an announcement was made at the World Workers Party (WWP) meeting that “Lane will present tapes he recorded in connection with the Oswald case for a period of one week starting on Monday, July 20, 1964. Included in these presentations will be the tape of his interview with Helen Markham.” The presentations will be given at Theater Four, 424 West 55th Street, Between 9th and 10th Avenues, NYC. [164]
The World Workers Party (WWP), you’ll recall, was a revolutionary Marxist-Leninist communist party founded in 1959 by a group led by Sam Marcy of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP). Mrs. Deirdre Griswold, the secretary of Lane’s “Citizens Committee of Inquiry,” which was looking into the JFK assassination, was a longtime WWP member. The WWP and its affiliate Youth Against War and Fascism (YAWF) were later known for their consistent defense of the Black Panthers, the Weather Underground and other radical groups. [165]
The next day, The National Guardian published an article, “Mark Lane Challenges Warren to Hear Tape on Disputed Evidence,” in which Lane was quoted as saying, “I shall play the tape recording during this month at a public meeting which members of the press and members of the Commission will be invited.” [166]
Lane submits the Markham tape recording
Finally, after four-and-a-half months of back-and-forth, Mark Lane submitted the recording of his March 2, 1964, telephone conversation with Helen Markham to Warren Commission chief counsel J. Lee Rankin. [167]
Lane also submitted a bill for $566.50 to reimburse expenses he claimed to have incurred when he testified on March 4, 1964, and as a result of his return from Europe to the United States to testify for the second time on July 2, 1964 – the same session in which he refused to turn over the recording or provide any useful information despite his appearance being paid for by U.S. taxpayers. [168]
In yet a third letter, this one addressed to Chief Justice Earl Warren, Lane admonished Warren for his widely publicized comment that he “had every reason to doubt the truthfulness” of Lane’s testimony on July 2, 1964. Lane wrote that since he had now submitted the recording, and in light of the fact that Lane believed the Commission would find that he had in fact been truthful about what Mrs. Markham told him, Lane requested that Chief Warren retract his statement about Lane’s “truthfulness” both publicly and in a written letter to Lane. [169]
Tape examined by FBI
The recording of the telephone conversation was immediately turned over to the FBI for transcription. After examining the recording, the FBI stated they could not guarantee that it hadn’t been altered: “The magnetic tape was examined and was found to be continuous with no splices. However, the art of tape recording is such that after skillful editing of a tape (adding or deleting words or making other changes) a copy can be made in which the changes cannot be detected. Therefore, the fact that this tape was continuous with no splice does not necessarily establish that the recording represents a verbatim account of the original conversation.” [170]
More importantly, the transcript of the recording showed that when Lane asked Markham: “…I read that you told some of the reporters that he [Tippit’s killer] was short, stocky, and had bushy hair,” Mrs. Markham replied: “No, no I did not say this.” [171] Lane then used leading questions to get Markham to describe Tippit’s killer in exactly that manner. [172]
A new recording surfaces
Three days after Mark Lane released his recording of his telephone conversation with Helen Markham to the Warren Commission, word began to leak out that Lane had yet another recording of a female eyewitness to the Tippit murder.
On July 19, 1964, at a Socialist Workers Party (SWP) meeting, SWP member Murray Ruckoff commented that Mark Lane “had real proof that LHO did not kill President JFK and that he, Lane, had interviewed a female witness who saw Oswald at the time of the assassination but who was never questioned by the FBI.” [173]
That same night, Mark Lane appeared as an in-studio guest on the Barry Gray Show, WMCA, New York. During the show, portions of the Helen Markham interview were broadcast. [174]
During the interview, Lane mentioned his belief that the Markham recording may constitute a violation of law. [175]
Lane also claimed to have the statement of another witness secured by “someone associated with our inquiry” but has not obtained permission to release it, but hopes to, in the next two weeks.
Lane claimed that the eyewitness was questioned by the FBI “at our request” months earlier, and that her name was also given to the Warren Commission, however, the commission “has declined to call her” to testify. (None of this was true.)
Lane claimed that the female eyewitness saw two men conversing with each other across a street, Tippit pulled up and approached one man who shot him, and the two men ran in opposite directions. (This was also inaccurate.)
Lane claimed that this was the first time he had referenced her and that, “We wanted to make sure that our statements were secured from her in writing and by tape, etc., so there could be no question about that. We now have, uh, the statements secured in that fashion…” [176]
The eyewitness referred to by Lane was Acquilla Clemons and the associate who secured the recording was Oklahoma housewife-turned-amateur-sleuth Shirley Martin. The lies and distortions inserted into the Acquilla Clemons narrative by Mark Lane, Shirley Martin and others were well documented in my November 1, 2017 blog article, “Mark Lane, Acquilla Clemons and the Murder of J.D. Tippit: What You Won’t Find in the JFK Assassination File Releases.” So, what follows is only a bare-bones outline of the shenanigans perpetrated at the time on an unsuspecting public by Lane and his cohorts.
Three nights at Theater Four
Between July 20-22, 1964, Mark Lane presented a series of public lectures on the Oswald case at Theater Four, 424 West 55th Street in New York City, during which he played portions of his March 2, 1964, tape-recorded telephone conversation with Helen Markham.
According to FBI informants, each lecture involved a crowd of approximately 175 to 200 persons. Lane was introduced by Deirdre Griswold, who identified herself “as Director of the Citizens Committee of Inquiry (CCI), NYC.” What Griswold didn’t tell the audience was that she was also a member of the World Workers Party (WWP), the revolutionary Marxist-Leninist communist organization founded in 1959. [177]
On the first night of lectures (July 20), according to FBI sources, Lane delivered his standard defense of Oswald, showed slides of affidavits, and played a tape of his conversation with Mrs. Helen Markham which was “of poor quality and difficult to understand.”
Lane stated “he had not given this tape to the Warren Commission because it was recorded during a telephone conversation from Lane in New York to Markham in Dallas, Texas, a fact which he thought could constitute a violation of state or federal law.” Lane also stated that he had “interviewed the son of Helen Markham who had been arrested by the Dallas PD shortly thereafter.” [178] (In fact, Lane hadn’t interviewed anyone except Markham. Individuals working with Lane had conducted the interviews.)
During the Q&A session, Lane was asked that if he so much evidence and had obviously developed such a strong case, why had he not approached Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and presented these facts to him? An FBI source reported that “Lane was flushed and hesitated before answering. Lane stated the Attorney General and the enforcement agencies involved has as much or more information than he did. According to this source, several people in the audience did not like Lane’s answer and began yelling that Lane was not answering the question. Lane disregarded the jeers and continued to answer other questions. This source stated that quite a few people left at that time.” [179]
On the second night (July 21), Lane again played the tape of his conversation with Mrs. Helen Markham but this time gave no details on how it was secured. Lane then stated “he had received valuable information from the son of Helen Markham concerning the Oswald case which he could not divulge at the present time. Lane stated that following his interview with the son of Helen Markham, the son was arrested by the Dallas Police Department on a burglary charge and subsequently was admitted to a hospital following injuries received in a fall from a bathroom window while in custody of the Dallas PD. The FBI source’s impression was that Lane strongly implied that Mrs. Markham’s son has received injuries at the hands of the Dallas PD rather than from any fall from a window.” During the Q&A session on the second night, Lane was asked if he recalled telling a British journalist named Saunders that Mrs. Markham was “a psychopathic liar”? Lane replied, “I will not deny that I might have said that but I certainly would not admit that I did say it right now.” [180]
On the third night (July 22), Lane again delivered his standard defense of Oswald, showed slides of affidavits (which he said he got from a “friend” who was kind enough to get them), and played a tape of his conversation with Mrs. Helen Markham. [181]
On this occasion, Lane “stated that he first denied having a tape of the call [with Helen Markham] because he thought it was not really important. Later when asked by the Warren Commission if he had such a tape, Lane claimed this tape was part of his client’s material.” (emphasis added) [182]
Lane told the audience that “he had contacted Mrs. Markham by telephone from New York after observing an office telephone number for her on one of the documents from the Dallas District attorney’s office. Lane stated at first Mrs. Markham said she could not talk to him since she was forbidden to do so by the FBI, Secret Service and the Dallas Police. Lane told her that as an American citizen, she was free to talk and also that he was to testify before the Warren Commission and could use her help. Lane told her he was not an official of the Warren Commission but would testify. He then taped his conversation with her concerning the description of the killer of Tippit.” (Underlined sentence in original document.) [183]
The FBI teletype transmitting the information above contains the following handwritten notation about the underlined portion of the teletype: “Not in transcript of recording.”
Indeed, the transcript of Lane’s conversation with Markham shows that the call begins with a long-distance telephone operator verifying that Mrs. Markham is on the line, followed by Lane identifying himself as “an attorney investigating the Oswald case.”
Lane then asks Markham if she would give him the description of the man who she saw shoot Tippit. Markham replies, “Yes, but this is an office business phone and I just can’t tell you; I don’t have the time.”
The context is clear – Lane had obviously interrupted Mrs. Markham at work and she didn’t want to tie-up the telephone line or take valuable time from work to talk about the case at that time – not that she had been forbidden to do so by law enforcement, as Lane later claimed in his speech.
In fact, Markham never mentioned being instructed not to discuss the case by law enforcement until page 27 of the 29-page transcript, and only then after Lane asked the following leading question: “How many FBI Agents would you say told you not to discuss this case with anyone?” (followed by, “How many Secret Service Agents told you not to discuss the case with anyone?” and “How many Dallas detectives told you not to discuss the case with anyone else?”)
Obviously, Mark Lane knows that asking a leading question in such a manipulative manner is on par with asking a husband, “When did you stop beating your wife?”
False charges of police abuse
During the third-night speech at Theater Four, Lane also stated that “two investigators from his office, not identified, had contacted Mrs. Markham at home in Dallas, Texas. At that time, Mrs. Markham refused to cooperate because she was under constant harassment by the FBI and Dallas police.”
Lane stated, however, “her twenty-one-year-old son James Markham went to the automobile belonging to Lane’s investigators and talked to them there. Lane stated the information furnished by James Markham could not be divulged at this time. He stated that following this James Markham was arrested by the Dallas PD for burglary. While in jail, he fell and has been in critical condition in the Dallas City jail hospital. All of Lane’s attempts to contact James Markham or his attorneys since then failed.” [184]
Of course, the audience couldn’t have known, but almost all of this was rubbish. Lane’s “two investigators” were actually three individuals: Vincent J. Salandria, a high school social studies teacher and part-time lawyer; his wife Irma; and brother-in-law, Harold Feldman, who left Philadelphia for Dallas on June 24, 1964, intent on conducting interviews in an investigation on behalf of Mark Lane’s “Citizen’s Committee of Inquiry.” [185] In Dallas, they hooked up with Marguerite Oswald and on June 27 showed up unannounced at the door of Helen Markham. [186]
Markham was afraid when the visitors showed up unannounced at her doorstep. She didn’t know who these people were and asked them to return later in the afternoon when her husband was home. After they left, Markham telephoned the FBI and told them she was afraid of the visitors. The FBI instructed her to call the Dallas Police Department and express her fears to them and let them know about the pending return of Salandria and company. [187]
When Salandria, Feldman and Marguerite Oswald showed up later that afternoon, they saw two Dallas police station wagons pulling away from Markham’s apartment. Salandria and company knocked on Markham’s door, but she refused to let them inside. As they left, Markham’s oldest son, William E. Markham, walked outside with the group.
Marguerite Oswald asked for his help and wanted to talk with him away from his mother’s influence. He walked with Marguerite down to the Oak Cliff Library at Marsalis and Jefferson with the others following in their car.
Upon arrival at the library, William Markham climbed into their car and answered questions while a tape recorder recorded the conversation.
William Markham later told the FBI that the investigators wanted to know about his mother, his brother James, and whether his mother, Helen Markham, was certain about her identification of Lee Harvey Oswald as Tippit’s killer.
Markham told them that “[his mother] appeared to have no doubt on this score. He was asked whether his mother had a reputation for fabricating stories or for lying, and he replied that she had lied on many occasions, even to members of her immediate family.”
William Markham later told the FBI that he never identified himself as his younger brother James and that the investigators knew him as William Edward Markham. [188] Salandria later claimed the tape-recorded interview with William Markham was lost. [189]
So, unlike Lane’s claims at Theater Four, Helen Markham didn’t refuse to cooperate with his investigators because “she was under constant harassment by the FBI and Dallas police,” but rather she was afraid of Lane’s own investigators! Nor was Markham’s younger son, James A. Markham, the one who approached Salandria and company and then allegedly paid back with critical injuries by the Dallas police for his troubles. No, it was Markham’s oldest son, William, who approached Lane’s investigators.
The one fact that was true was that James A. Markham was arrested by Dallas police, and subsequently injured himself trying to escape, but neither incident had anything to do with the visit by Lane’s investigators.
Dallas Police told the FBI that on July 24, 1964 – nearly a month after Lane’s investigators visited Markham’s apartment – Helen Markham’s son, James A. Markham, and two accomplices burglarize the Marsalis Zoo concession stand. A Dallas patrolman happened to stop one of the accomplice’s car and found a pillow case full of cartons of cigarettes. The arrest led to Markham who had cartons of cigarettes from the burglary in his own possession. At 6:05 a.m., July 30, 1964, Dallas police arrived at the Markham home to arrest James Markham on burglary charges. He leapt out a bathroom window to escape and was injured. After treatment at Parkland Hospital, Markham was incarcerated for the burglary charge and for a parole violation dated April 8, 1964. (Markham had been jailed for one month in Gatesville, TX., in 1959 for burglary and escape therefrom. He was subsequently confined to Huntsville, TX., for 14 months in 1962 for burglary, paroled on August 23, 1963, and the parole subsequently revoked on April 8, 1964, for failure to report.) [190]
During his speeches at Theater Four, Lane accused the FBI, Secret Service, and Dallas PD of “failure to adequately protest the President,” complained of being recently stopped on the street by FBI agents, charged that two FBI agents were present whenever he speaks; and claimed that he only “wants to work for the truth” and is only interested “in facts, not theory.” [191]
The second female Tippit witness
In the wake of Lane’s three Theater Four appearances, the Warren Commission ordered the FBI to investigate Lane’s claim that there was a second female witness to the Tippit shooting. [192]
Lane offered no help to the Commission, failing to alert them that his investigators had even discovered a second female witness. [193]
For Lane, a second witness to Tippit’s killing – one that the law enforcement and in particular, the Warren Commission, was unaware of – was just more cannon fodder he could use as a hammer for his ideological and personal gain. Obviously, Lane had no intention of getting to the truth about Oswald’s role in the assassination or in aiding the official investigation.
As I pointed out in my detailed 2017 blog article, “Mark Lane, Acquilla Clemons and the Murder of J.D. Tippit: What You Won’t Find in the JFK Assassination File Releases,” Lane’s second witness turned out to be Acquilla Clemons, an obese diabetic who offered nothing more than minor details to the Tippit shooting story in a secret recording made by amateur sleuth Shirley Martin. Clemons offered nothing that seriously challenged the physical evidence and a myriad of eyewitness testimony that Lee Harvey Oswald murdered J.D. Tippit.
Rather than release the secret recording, which Lane eventually did in Markham’s case, he instead offered his own twisted and distorted version of Clemons’ comments. All of this was laid bare when a transcript of the recording finally surfaced more than fifty-years after the fact.
More Communist support in Europe
In late August, 1964, an FBI informant provided the FBI with a copy of an open letter issued by Lord Bertrand Russell at the time of the formation of the British “Who Killed Kennedy Committee?” The informant advised that “none of the members of the committee were considered to be Communists, although they cover a large spectrum of left-wing opinions and have in varying degrees been publicly associated with organizations penetrated, and in some cases, controlled by the Communist Party of Great Britain.” [194]
In November, 1964, the Danish newspaper Berlingske Tidende published an article which Mark Lane considered defamatory. Lane filed libel action against the newspaper, and on November 11, 1965, the Danish High Court found the statements of the paper ill-founded. The responsible editor was sentenced to pay 2500 D.kr. ($4,410 USD today) costs, whereas a claim for damages to the amount of no less than 5000 D.kr. ($8,820 USD today) was rejected. Jorgen Jacobsen, the known Communist and founder of the Danish Mark Lane Committee, acted as counsel for Mark Lane in the case. [195]
A mockery of truth
On February 19, 1965, Mark Lane spoke before the Friday Night Forum, Newark, NJ., (a Communist front group) telling the audience that the Warren Commission had “submitted a manufactured report which fitted preconceived ideas about President Kennedy’s assassination. Lane was highly critical of the Commission’s report and stated it was a mockery of truth.” [196]
In August, 1965, Mark Lane was reported to be living in Denmark, having married Anne-Lise Dabelsteen in December, 1964. [197]
On August 6, 1965, Lane returned to the United States and was a featured speaker before a meeting of the Militant Labor Forum (MLF) of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) in New York City. His topic related to “the Cuban Revolution and he pointed out that the communist government in Cuba is best for citizens of that country and that the Cuban people had embraced communism because it was the only way open to them when the United States refused to negotiate.” [198]
During this period, Lane was also the attorney for the Youth Against War and Fascism (YAWF), the successor to the Anti-Fascist Youth Committee which was established by the World Workers Party (WWP) to attract youth to WWP membership (in Sept. 1962, Deirdre Griswold, later secretary of Lane’s “Citizens Committee of Inquiry” (CCI), was described as one of the two persons controlling the YAWF group); was present at WWP HQ where WWP members were mimeographing Lane’s book on the assassination of JFK; spoke at YAWF meetings held to protest American actions in Vietnam; was the payee on two checks drawn on the account of the YAWF and accepted an invitation to a reception at the Czechoslovak UN Mission, NYC. [199]
A forthcoming book and film
On December 31, 1965, Inspector Chorley, Special Branch, New Scotland Yard, London, England, furnished the FBI a business prospectus for the purpose of making a film based on the Mark Lane book Rush to Judgment. The prospectus stated that the film costs were estimated at $56,000 dollars ($547,181 dollars today). British film crews would be sent to the U.S. in mid-December to film interviews. The projected completion date was March, 1966. Lane and Richard Lord Stark would produce. Emile de Antonio would direct. [200] The FBI noted that Emile De Antonio “has attended many Communist Party (CP) meetings and had taken an active part in attempting to obtain new members for the CP.” De Antonio was the director and one of the producers of the motion picture “Point of Order,” which dealt with the hearings conducted by Senator Joseph McCarthy. [201]
On January 4, 1966, the Danish Security Service informed the FBI that the Danish newspaper Lolland-Falsters Folketidende published an article that date which said in part: “Mark Lane has now finished reading the proofs of his book dealing with the assassination of President Kennedy and entitled ‘Rush to Judgment.’ After having spent Christmas and New Year with his parents-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. Dabelsteen, Nykøbing F., Mark Lane and his wife flew to London where the book is to be published by Bodley Head, publishers, London, in April, 1966. Six months after its appearance, the book is to be reprinted in a paper-back edition in twelve countries. Professor Trevor-Roper, Oxford University, has written a preface to the book, stating that in its evaluation of what happened in Dallas, history must take into account both the Warren Report and Mark Lane’s book.” The Danish Security Service further advised that the book would possibly appear as a series of articles in the Daily Telegraph, London, England. [202]
The article went on to state that a documentary full-length film, based on Lane’s book, would be made in the near future. Lane and his associates plan to travel to Dallas, Texas, in February, 1966, to interview witnesses to the assassination. “This film is also [to be] shown in the United States where the massive opposition to Mark Lane’s views of the Kennedy tragedy has declined considerably,” the article reported. “The film may possibly be released by the company ‘United Artists,’ if not, Mark Lane will hire cinemas in New York and Dallas and show the film there, and it will also be distributed to film clubs all over the United States.” [203]
In late February, 1966, FBI informant Nelson Frank, a NYC freelance writer on labor matters, advised the FBI that the American printing of Rush to Judgment was being prepared by Viking Press, New York. The informant reported that in checking the manuscript Viking Press discovered “inaccuracies and exaggerations which they demanded [Lane] clarify.” Lane reportedly informed Viking Press that “he could change the manuscript to their satisfaction.” [204]
One month later, Holt, Rhinehart and Winston, New York – the eventual American publishers of Rush to Judgment – received the corrected galleys of Lane’s forthcoming book and began making plans to publish it. [205]
‘Robert Blake’ makes his appearance
Meanwhile, in Dallas, Mark Lane was up to more subterfuge as he and film director Emile De Antonio began a series of filmed interviews for their forthcoming film based on the yet-to-be-published book Rush to Judgment.
With his filmed interview of Acquilla Clemons in the bag (see a detailed accounting of Lane’s trickery with Clemons HERE), Lane contacted Lee E. Bowers, Jr., a railroad employee who witnessed the assassination from a railroad tower behind the grassy knoll. Lane introduced himself to Bowers as ‘Robert Blake’ and said that he was making a film on the assassination. Bowers told ‘Blake’ (aka Mark Lane) that he didn’t have time to talk at that moment and ‘Blake’ replied that he would recontact him later. [206] Suspicious, Bowers telephoned the FBI and informed them of ‘Blake’s visit. [207]
Two days later, Emile De Antonio and ‘Robert Blake’ (aka Mark Lane) approached Jean Hill, the Dallas schoolteacher who witnessed the assassination with her friend Mary Moorman. De Antonio had telephoned Hill on several previous occasions saying that he was preparing an “educational television documentary” and desired to interview her in detail. Despite the fact that Hill had not consented to an interview, De Antonio and Mr. ‘Blake’ dropped by her house unannounced on March 29, 1964, for the purpose of conducting the interview.
Hill questioned them as to the exact nature of their visit and being a school teacher, herself, doubted that they were endeavoring to compile data for any educational television documentary relating to the assassination.
Mrs. Hill stated that she had previously talked to an individual named Jones Harris, who was also desiring to interview her for purposes of a book he was writing and that Jones Harris had indicated to her that De Antonio was one of ‘Mark Lane’s men.’ Mrs. Hill then specifically asked De Antonio and Mr. ‘Blake’ if they were connected with Mark Lane and De Antonio admitted that Mark Lane was ‘one of their backers,’ never acknowledging that the man who was standing right in front of Mrs. Hill, and who had identified himself as Mr. ‘Blake’ was in fact Mark Lane!
Mrs. Hill stated “that De Antonio and [Blake] tried to convince her that other witnesses to the assassination had talked to them freely,” that former police chief Jesse Curry was scheduled to be interviewed, and that they had talked to persons on the railroad overpass, inferring that they had “someone who had seen everything” and that they had “someone who saw the shooting come from some bushes” near the Texas School Book Depository. Mrs. Hill was unconvinced and after they left, she called the FBI to report the encounter. [208]
The next day, March 30, 1964, the film makers approach Tippit witness Warren A. Reynolds, who agreed to a filmed interview in exchange for $300 dollars. [209] Lee Bowers also consented to a filmed interview this date. [210]
The following day (March 31), Lee Bowers personally visited the Dallas FBI Office and advised FBI SA Robert P. Gemberling that “he had consented to a filmed interview with representatives of Judgment Films Corporation,” the interview having been conducted the previous day.
Bowers advised that “the man he dealt with was a ‘Robert Blake’. Also present at the filming of his interview was a blonde female identified as Mrs. ‘Blake’; Emile de Antonio, who was supposed to be the producer; a camera man not further identified; an individual with a clip board; a bearded man operating sound equipment; and another individual not further identified.” [211]
‘Blake’ told Bowers that he was “attempting to put on film what the President’s Commission on the assassination had determined” about the assassination. (This, of course, was a lie.)
Bowers told Gemberling that during his interview considerable time was spent on the portion of his testimony where he was interrupted by Warren Commission counsel and Blake’s group wanted to know what he was about to say when he was interrupted. Blake’s group also dwelled on the portion of his testimony where he said a motorcycle officer rode up the embankment; the sequence of shots with respect to whether they could have been fired by one man with one rifle; what the “flash” was that he mentioned; and the cars he observed with political stickers on them. [212]
Bowers told FBI agent Gemberling that prior to his interview he had his attorney draw up an indemnification agreement, which Emile de Antonio signed. [213]
In the morning, on March 31, Bowers “determined that the individual representing himself as Robert Blake was actually Mark Lane.” A photo of Mark Lane taken in 1962 was shown to Bowers by Gemberling and Bowers identified Lane’s photo as being the individual he knew as ‘Robert Blake.’
Bowers told Gemberling that he was now concerned that the filmed interview “might be used in a distorted fashion” and was interested to know if Lane had violated any federal law. SA Gemberling contacted Assistant U.S. Attorney B.H. Timmins, who advised him that Lane’s misrepresentation did not constitute a violation of any federal law, which Gemberling then relayed to Bowers. [214]
By early July, 1966, a rough-cut of Emile De Antonio and Mark Lane’s film “Rush to Judgment” had been completed. [215]
 |
Rush to Judgment
On August 15, 1966, Mark Lane’s “Rush to Judgment” was published by Holt, Rhinehart and Winston in New York City. A Bodley Head Ltd., version appeared in England nearly a month later on September 22, 1966. [216]
In the wake of the publication, two attorneys for the Warren Commission, Joseph A. Ball, senior counsel for the commission, and law professor Wesley J. Liebeler, traded sharp comments with critics and authors, Mark Lane and Edward J. Epstein on a panel at the Associated Press Managing Editors Association Convention in San Diego, CA, in mid-November.
Liebeler and Lane had the sharpest exchange. According to an article in the San Francisco Chronicle, “Liebeler said Lane’s book was a ‘tissue of distortion’ and he said when he had made similar charges previously Lane had threatened to sue him. ‘I’ve been waiting anxiously for those papers ever since,’ Liebeler said. ‘If you have them here… I’ll be glad to accept service of process… because you know very well as soon as you do that, you’re going to have to submit yourself to deposition under oath, and go through the discovery proceedings, and that day I’ll wait for, Mr. Lane.’ Lane, sitting next to Liebeler, said quietly, ‘You’ll have them very soon.’” [217]
Needless to say, Lane never launched the lawsuit.
Rush to Judgment – The Film
On January 13, 1967, Emile De Antonio and Mark Lane’s film “Rush to Judgment,” based on the best-selling book, made its debut at a high school in Great Neck, New York, to a near capacity crowd of about 900 persons. The film was sponsored by the Great Neck Forum, a left-wing political discussion group with ties to the filmmakers. Tickets were $2 but admission was free to subscribing members of the Great Neck Forum. A spokesman for Impact Films, the distributor, said the film is not expected to open commercially in New York until at least the end of the month. The distributor said it has been difficult to get definite dates because “the exhibitors are afraid to touch it.” Newsday film critic Joseph Gelmis, who attended the showing, described the film as a one-sided attempt to infer that there was a second gunman firing from the grassy knoll and that Jack Ruby was involved in a Dallas police conspiracy. “As a film,” Gelmis wrote, “Rush to Judgment is static, sloppily edited, and poorly photographed. It is as crude as any makeshift Army training film.” Gelmis declared that the films success will rest “on the credibility of Lane’s witnesses and emotional factors not related to artistic merit.” At the premiere showing, the audience was clearly on Lane’s side – booing and hissing when pictures of President Lyndon B. Johnson and former CIA director Allen Dulles appeared on screen and applauding enthusiastically at the films end. [218]
By January 30, 1967, the film had recouped two-thirds of its $56,000 cost with a single television airing on the BBC. [219]
Playboy
In February, 1967, Playboy magazine published an interview with Mark Lane. An FBI memorandum noted the publication, commenting that the “lengthy interview of the notorious Mark Lane, author of ‘Rush to Judgment,’” was “a conscienceless attack upon the Warren Commission… The interview is a rehash of the scurrilous and irresponsible charges he made concerning the Warren Commission’s conclusions. It is replete with allusions indicating the FBI did not thoroughly investigate the assassination.” Lane charges in the interview that the Warren Commission issued “a false report.” The FBI memo notes: “Many of the half-truths, irresponsible statements, and downright lies reflected in his book were repeated in the interview. It does not appear necessary to again analyze these charges.” [220]
Meanwhile, the British Security Service, MI-5, advised the FBI that Rogosin Film Productions, Ltd., had acquired worldwide rights to distribute the Lane’s film Rush to Judgment and had offered the film to the Soviet Peace Committee for showing in Moscow. [221]
Concurrently, the British Security Service, MI-6, in a joint operation with the CIA, intercepted telephone conversations between Jimmy Vaughan, who was connected with Mark Lane’s film, Rush to Judgment, and Roberto Yepe, Second Secretary Consular, Cuban Embassy, in which discussions about getting the film shown in Havana, Cuba, were being discussed. [222]
In March, 1967, Mark Lane jetted off to Dublin, Ireland, where he appeared on Radio Telefis Eireann, following the broadcast of his film, Rush to Judgment. After the broadcast, Lane and two Dublin lawyers, Liam Hamilton and William Finlay, discussed the Warren Report; their discussion moderated by Brian Farrell.
Lane contended that the persons featured in Rush to Judgment “were not called by the Warren Commission although they should have been, and that the Warren Commission was made up of politicians (two of whom were Southerners) and a former CIA Chief ‘whose business it was to deceive.’ He maintained that the Commission’s aim was to conceal a conspiracy involving more persons than Oswald and possibly some subversive elements.
At one point, Lane came very near to suggesting that the persons engineering the assassination knew that the then Vice-President would succeed to the Presidency and would naturally hope to profit from it.”
During the discussion, Dublin attorneys Hamilton and Findlay attempted to question Lane on many points. A U.S. Department of State Airgram noted: “Lane constantly interrupted them and it was only in the few closing minutes of the program that one of the lawyers was able even so much as to finish a few sentences without interruptions… The moderator, Brian Farrell, was better as a commentator in favor of the Report than he was as a referee attempting to ensure that each side of the controversy had an opportunity to be heard. Lane made no secret of his feelings that he had been denied an opportunity to present his case before the American public. Indeed, he said that his film had been banned on American television.” [223]
KGB Code Name: ‘Kram’
In August, 1967, a deep penetration agent, code named ‘Shamrock’, embed in Soviet intelligence in New York City informed the FBI that “Kram” was the KGB’s code name for Mark Lane, the lawyer and author of a recent book critical of the Warren Commission.
The source stated that Boris Grekhov, a Soviet national, employed as an information officer in the Office of Public Information at the UN Secretariat, New York City, who was also a KGB officer assigned to the New York Residency, had had two meetings with Lane and had established ‘conditions of meetings with Lane’ and had a trusted relationship with him. Lane had subsequently traveled to Europe and had not been contacted by the KGB since his return to the US. Grekhov last departed the US on April 2, 1966. [224]
The FBI revealed that Grekhov was believed to be identical with Boris Mikhaylovich Grekhov, a Soviet national formerly employed by the United Nations Secretariat, New York City. Grekhov served in the United States from February 13, 1964, to June 17, 1965, and again from August 19, 1965, to April 2, 1966. According to ‘Shamrock,’ information concerning Lane had previously been made available to the KGB in December, 1963. This data described him as an attorney; a member of the New York State Assembly; and sharply opposed to the policies of the New York Democratic Party. He was also described as sharply opposed to racial discrimination, having organized a group of ‘freedom riders’ which traveled to southern states where he was arrested. He was further described as an advocate of passive resistance although he is not inclined to submissiveness.” [225]
The FBI memo detailing Lane’s contacts with the KGB also referred to the 1962 file on Lane created by the Office of the District Attorney, Queens County, New York, which was the result of “an investigation of him for alleged sodomy furnishing the Bureau with statements and photographs concerning perverted sexual acts of a sadistic and masochistic nature committed by Lane.” [226]
The message was clear. If the Queens County District Attorney and the FBI had the 1962 file, no doubt the KGB did as well – a perfect blackmail tool to use to ensnare Lane. Of course, blackmail wouldn’t necessarily be needed in Lane’s case since he had always shown a willingness to engage with persons associated directly and indirectly with Communist causes. Still, it would be favorable to the KGB to have an ace in the hole.
And the Queens County District Attorney, the FBI, and possibly the KGB, weren’t the only ones with proof of Lane’s sexual escapades.
Dallas Assistant D.A. William F. “Bill” Alexander told FBI SA Carl L. Curtis, Jr., in April, 1968, that he (Alexander) “had known for several months that a photograph of Lane as the subject of a masochist [orgy] was in existence and that he (Alexander) has acquired this photograph recently from an undisclosed source in New York. Alexander [said] that Mark Lane had been critical of police authorities and the FBI and had caused a lot of [trouble] for Dallas authorities. He stated that if Mark Lane should ever return to Dallas he would be confronted with this photograph. [227]
Hale Boggs, former Warren Commission member, also had the dirt on Mark Lane (including the photograph of Lane taken during a perverted sexual act) since November, 1966. His son revealed the existence of the file in 1975. [228]
 |
Postscript – The Mitrokin Archive
In 1992, KGB archivist Vasili Mitrokhin defected to the United Kingdom. During his thirty-years as a KGB archivist in the foreign intelligence service and the First Chief Directorate, Mitrokhin squirrel away six full trunks of handwritten notes, primary sources and official documents detailing the KGB’s clandestine intelligence operations around the world.
In 2001, author Joseph Trento (“The Secret History of the CIA”) commented that “we know the Mitrokhin material is real because it fills in the gaps in Western files on major cases through 1985. Also, the operational material matches western electronic intercepts and agent reports. What MI-6 got for a little kindness and a pension was the crown jewels of Russian intelligence.” [229]
Documents in Mark Lane’s FBI file, released on November 9, 2017, include excerpts from the Mitrokin archive, including the following:
Mark Lane is well known as a person with close ties to Democratic Party circles in the U.S. He holds liberal views on a number of current American political problems, and has undertaken to conduct his own private investigation of the circumstances surrounding the murder of J. Kennedy. This coincided with the interests of the KGB and the New York Residency.
According to the Mitrokin archive, in January, 1964, the KGB sent Mark Lane $1,500 dollars to “help finance his research” through the intermediary of a close friend whom Lane’s KGB file identified only as “a trusted contact.” While Lane was not told the source of the money, “the [KGB’s New York] residency suspected that he might have guessed where it came from.” The KGB was also “concerned that the secret subsidy might be discovered by the FBI.” [230]
According to the Mitrokin Archive, the same intermediary who earlier supplied $1,500 to help finance Lane’s research, also supplied $500 to pay for Lane’s trip to Europe in 1964. [231]
While in Europe during his 1964 tour(s), Mark Lane “asked to visit Moscow in order to discuss some of the material he had found. The Centre regretfully concluded that inviting him to Russia would reveal is hand in too blatant a way and his proposed trip was ‘tactfully postponed.’ Trusted contacts were, however, selected from among Soviet journalists to encourage him in his research. Among them was the KGB agent Genrikh Borovik, who later maintained regular contact with Lane.” [232]
Lane once again expressed to Borovik his desire to visit Moscow and show authorities there the film that he had put together, which discredited the official version of the President’s murder. Once again, he was delicately told that the time was not right for such a trip, since the American government might begin a slander campaign against him in connection with his involvement in the anti-war movement. American Communists who were in Moscow in 1971 expressed the opinion that, although Lane was engaged in activity that was advantageous to the Communists, he was doing this not without profit to himself, and sought to achieve personal popularity and become a national figure.
Other investigators and Kennedy assassination buffs were supplied by the KGB not only with money, but also with circumstantial evidence that made the affair appear to be a well-concealed political conspiracy.” [233]
On August 18, 1975, photocopies of a note from Lee Harvey Oswald, prepared at Center as part of KGB operation codenamed ‘ARLINGTON,’ were sent from Mexico to three American citizens who were investigating Kennedy’s murder: Harold Weisberg, Penn Jones, Jr. and Howard Roffman.
The note, dated “8 Nov 1963,” became known as the “Dear Mr. Hunt” letter. The concept of ‘ARLINGTON’ was “based on the use of an assassination theory that was widespread in the US” at the time which claimed E. Howard Hunt, a former CIA employee convicted in 1974 in connection with the Watergate affair, participated in organizing the Kennedy murder.
‘ARLINGTON’ was “carried out in such a way as to fuel (the flames of suspicion) with fresh news and to expose the participation of the American special services [CIA] in the liquidation of Kennedy.”
The “Dear Mr. Hunt” letter was composed by the KGB using phrases and expressions taken from letters written by Oswald during his stay in the USSR and written in Oswald’s handwriting on a “scrap of the writing paper that Oswald used in Texas. This note was on two occasions subjected to graphological and chronological examination ‘for authenticity’ by the Third Section of the KGB’s Operational-Technical Directorate (OUT).
The “Dear Mr. Hunt” letter was accompanied by another note suggesting that FBI Director Clarence Kelley had been given a copy of the “Dear Mr. Hunt” letter previously but had failed to do anything with it. [234]
It was intended that the person who received the photocopy of the Oswald note would request that FBI Director Kelly produce the original note. Kelly, naturally, would deny that he had received such a note, and this would encourage the investigator even more to obtain the desired document.
In early February 1977, the first reference to the Oswald note appeared in the American press. The US Attorney General announced that it was “impossible to determine through laboratory testing whether the [photocopied] letter was authentic or fabricated.” [235]
However, at the beginning of April, the New York Times, stated that three handwriting experts confirmed the letter’s authenticity. [236]
Unfortunately, the American pressed tied the letter to oil millionaire H. L. Hunt, rather than the former CIA employee E. Howard Hunt, as the KGB intended. The KGB’s FCD disinformation service “believed that Oswald’s connection with Hunt the millionaire, rather than with Hunt, the CIA officer, was purposely played up in the American press in order to divert public attention from Oswald’s contacts with the special services [CIA].”
In April 1977, the KGB informed the Central Committee of the CPSU that it would take additional measures to promote services in a political conspiracy directed against President Kennedy. The [KGB’s] Disinformation Service made a point of commenting on every significant world event and interpreting it through its own prism. [237]
Lane denies the KGB connection
In 2006, in response to a Max Holland article [238] published in The Nation, which detailed the KGB-Lane connection detailed in the Mitrokin Archive, Lane denied the connection with the Soviets.
“[Max] Holland states that the KGB was secretly funding my work with a payment of ‘$12,500 (in 2005 dollars),’ Lane wrote in a letter to the editor of The Nation. “It was a secret all right. It never happened. Holland’s statement is an outright lie. Neither the KGB nor any person or organization associated with it ever made any contribution to my work. No one ever made a sizable contribution, with the exception of Corliss Lamont, who contributed enough for me to fly one time from New York to Dallas to interview eyewitnesses. The second-largest contribution was $50 given to me by Woody Allen. Have Corliss and Woody now joined Holland’s fanciful conspiracy?
“Funds for the work of the Citizens Committee of Inquiry were raised by me. I lectured each night for more than a year in a Manhattan theater. The Times referred to the very well attended talks as one of the longest-running performances off Broadway. That was not a secret. I am surprised that Holland never came across that information, especially since he refers to what he calls ‘The Speech’ in his diatribe.
“Apparently, Holland did not fabricate the KGB story; his associates at the CIA did. There is proof for that assertion, but I fear that I have taken too much space already.” [239]
Lane didn’t want to take time because he wanted to spend seven paragraphs charging Holland with being a CIA stooge, eager to please his masters.
Holland hit back, writing, “I find it illuminating that Lane has taken no legal action (not even in Britain!) against the authors (Christopher Andrew and KGB archivist-turned-defector Vasili Mitrokhin) and publishers of the 1999 volume that revealed “the [KGB’s] New York residency sent [Lane initially] $1,500 dollars to help finance his research” through an intermediary. That doesn’t necessarily mean it came in a lump sum. And neither Andrew/Mitrokhin nor I allege that Lane was a witting recipient, just a useful one.” [240]
Communist stooges
Mark Lane died on May 10, 2016. The Soviet’s Operation ‘ARLINGTON’ may have died too, but the willful idiocy of those seeking to perpetuate a six-decade-old Cold War scheme to blame the assassination of a U.S. President on “elements of the right-wing” is clearly pathological.
After sixty-years of combing through the ashes and combing through the remnants of the ashes and, finally, combing through the remnants of the remnants of the ashes, one thing is abundantly clear to anyone not wearing a tin-foil hat – Lee Harvey Oswald, a twenty-four-year-old disgruntled youth who had been marginalized his whole life grabbed destiny when it appeared before him and surprised the world. If only someone had listened to what he had been saying his whole life (if only in his head) – “I’m someone to be reckoned with!”
In 1963, no one wanted to the believe it; no one could believe it. There had to have been more to it, many thought.
But can anyone seriously say that today, given three official investigations (the original 1963 Dallas police investigation, the 1964 Warren Commission inquiry and the 1978 House Select Committee on Assassinations), umpteen syndicated and network-based television documentaries, the 1992 JFK Records Act, and access to more than five-million pages of documents?
But even setting aside the 2,200 cubic feet of investigative materials, look at what we now know about serial killers, reckless youths, and what can happen to young minds when they feel abandoned and put off by a society more focused on self-promotion than solving the endless problems created by shattered families and broken societies?
Lee Harvey Oswald is a textbook example of the modern sociopath. He shocked the world when he pulled out his rifle and fired three shots at Kennedy’s retreating motorcade. I doubt he thought he’d ever get out of the Texas School Book Depository alive. I suppose it never occurred to him that the shock value itself would be his greatest source of cover.
Once he managed to get back to his Oak Cliff room and re-arm himself with a .38-caliber pistol, he was winging it. Where to go? What to do? Fate chose for him when he bumped into Dallas Patrolman J.D. Tippit and set the final stage into motion.
I suspect Oswald thought about going out in a blaze of glory at the Texas Theater (“This is it. It’s all over now,” he reportedly said) as police closed-in, but the cops were quick and too many overwhelmed him.
For the next two days, he was like the cat who ate the canary. Law enforcement knew he did it (his own foolish actions on Tenth Street betrayed his consciousness of guilt); they’d seen this before. Eventually the police would figure out how. He knew it. They knew it. Until such time, he would bide his time and smirk; amused by police efforts to wrap a rope tight around his neck.
The only thing that could spoil it now would be another hot-head. And right on cue, fate stepped in again in the form of burly nightclub owner Jack Ruby.
Sixty years on
The big conspiracy never materialized for the Mark Lanes of the world. The reason is crystal clear – it was never there to begin with.
Even today, some die-hards hold their breath, awaiting the release of yet another batch of ‘final’ documents still hidden behind closed doors at the National Archives or in the vaults of some secret government agency. But there’s nothing there. Just tidbits of immaterial details that have been dredged up from deep in the weeds; certainly nothing that would overturn millions of pages that demonstrate Oswald’s certain guilt. But still, for a few the hope persists.
Sometimes life is a simple as it seems and all the wishful thinking and all the ideological foot-stomping isn’t going to change anything.
The Communist Party produced a narrative within hours of the assassination that fit their world view – radical right-wing elements murdered the president. When the self-proclaimed Marxist Lee Oswald was arrested, the communist fanatics couldn’t believe it; wouldn’t believe it. How dare Oswald ruin a perfectly good narrative?
The best thing they could have hoped for was Oswald’s death. Could it be that they were behind Jack Ruby’s deed?
No, the evidence is clear. The Communists didn’t kill Oswald, they made him. And their perverse ideology drove him to his demise. Isn’t that the way it always is? Another useful idiot paying the ultimate price for the Communist Party's one-hundred-year long revolution.
Today, Mark Lane has been replaced by dozens (perhaps hundreds or even thousands) of like-minded individuals who seek to con the gullible by spinning reality into a web of conspiracy comprised of nothing more than their own ideological world view. And it’s not just the assassination narrative that they have their sights on. It’s much bigger game – the destruction of the American society.
Many of these hucksters have been cut from the same cloth as Lane; more interested in self-aggrandizement than truth. And much like Oswald, they sit in their perch waiting for their opportunity to prove that they too are somebody to be reckoned with.
And so, it goes – sixty years on. [END]
Footnotes
[1] Hoover, J. Edgar, “Masters of Deceit: The Story of Communism in America and How to Fight It,” (Henry Holt and Company, New York, March 1958), p.93
[2] Testimony of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover before the House on Un-American Activities, March 26, 1947
[3] WBAP-TV, November 22, 1963, 2:23 p.m. (CST), TASS report regarding the president's death is reported; UPI “Police Attempt to Implicate Reds is TASS Charge,” Albuquerque Journal, November 24, 1963, Section F, p.1; Zorza, Victor, “Unspoken horror in Russia,” The Guardian, November 25, 1963, p.1
[4] AP “Oswald Depicted as Martyr by Red Propaganda Machine,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, November 25, 1963, Section A, p.2
[5] FBI 124-10371-10166, p.246 / FBI Memo, Jan. 16, 1964, p.1
[6] FBI 124-10371-10166 / FBI Memo, Jan. 16, 1964, p.3
[7] FBI 124-10371-10166, p.248 / FBI Memo, Jan. 16, 1964, p.3; Needleman, Isodore Gibby NARA 1993.07.12.15:21:34:620340, April 7, 1967, p.6
[8] FBI 124-10371-10166 / FBI Memo, Jan. 16, 1964, p.2
[9] FBI_124-10371-10166, p.102 / Appendix, New York Council to Abolish the House Un-American Activities Committee, p.14; FBI 124-10371-10166, p.248 / FBI Memo, Jan. 16, 1964, p.3; WC 179-40002-10360 / Information from Files of the HCUA, Subject: Mark Lane, p.1
[10] FBI 124-10371-10166, pp.248-249 / FBI Memo, Jan. 16, 1964, pp.3-4
[11] FBI 124-10371-10166, p.248 / FBI Memo, Jan. 16, 1964, p.3
[12] “800 Attend Anti-blockade Rally,” The Poughkeepsie Journal, Poughkeepsie, NY, October 25, 1962, p.13
[13] WC 179-40007-10228 (aka CD445c) / FBI report of Benjamin P. McManus, February 3, 1964, p.3
[14] WC 179-40007-10228 (aka CD445c) / FBI report of Benjamin P. McManus, February 3, 1964, Appendix: Citizens Committee for Constitutional Liberties, pp.10-11
[15] FBI 124-10184-10269 (aka DOCID 32176274) / FBI Report, NY SA Thomas J. Ryan to Director, March 19, 1964, p.1
[16] Chartener, W. H. (1949) “Reds in trade unions,” Editorial research reports 1949 (Vol. II), Washington, DC: CQ Press. Retrieved from http://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/cqresrre1949072200)
[17] FBI 124-10182-10418 (aka DOCID 32175685) / FBI Memorandum, SAC NY to Director, December 23, 1963, p.1; FBI 124-10320-10101 / FBI Report of Benjamin P. McManus, February 3, 1964, p. D Cover page
[18] FBI 124-10371-10166, April 24, 1964, HSCA Administrative Folder, Mark Lane Volume 1 / Lane, Mark, “Lane’s defense brief for Oswald,” National Guardian, December 19, 1963, pp. 5-9
[19] FBI 124-10371-10166 / FBI Memo, Jan. 16, 1964, p.4; FBI 124-10320-10299 / FBI Correlation Summary on Mark Lane, April 22, 1965, p.22
[20] FBI 124-10320-10101 / FBI Report of Benjamin P. McManus, February 3, 1964, p. D Cover page; FBI 124-10320-10299 / FBI Correlation Summary on Mark Lane, April 22, 1965, p.14
[21] FBI 124-10371-10166 / FBI Memo, Jan. 16, 1964, p.1
[22] [“Oswald’s Mother Hires Lane,” New York Herald Tribune, January 15, 1964, p.7, column 1
[23] FBI 124-10371-10166 / FBI Airtel, April 28, 1964, p.2
[24] WC 179-40001-10372, FBI Letterhead Memorandum, January 20, 1964, p.1
[25] WC 179-40001-10372, FBI Letterhead Memorandum, January 20, 1964, pp.1-2
[26] FBI 124-10249-10164 / FBI Memorandum, SA John Edward Hegarty to SAC, NY, February 26, 1964, p.1
[27] FBI 124-10249-10164 / FBI Memorandum, SA John Edward Hegarty to SAC, NY, February 26, 1964, p.2
[28] FBI 124-10249-10164 / FBI Memorandum, SA John Edward Hegarty to SAC, NY, February 26, 1964, p.3; FBI 124-10320-10299 / FBI Correlation Summary on Mark Lane, April 22, 1965, p.14
[29] FBI 124-10320-10299 / FBI Correlation Summary on Mark Lane, April 22, 1965, pp.11-12 (Released: November 14, 2017)
[30] FBI 124-10320-10299 / FBI Correlation Summary on Mark Lane, April 22, 1965, p.12
[31] FBI 105-82555, Oswald HQ File, Section 136, p.32 / FBI report of SA Chester C. Orton, April 14, 1964, Mark Lane, p.29
[32] Needleman, Isodore Gibby, NARA 1993.07.12.15:57:30:530340, Jim Hawley Bio, March 19, 1968, pp.4-5
[33] FBI 124-10320-10299 / FBI Correlation Summary on Mark Lane, April 22, 1965, p.10
[34] FBI 124-10186-10078, Appendix, W.E.B. Du Bois Clubs of America (DCA), p.268; FBI 62-109060, JFK HQ File, Section 103, p.53 / Mark Lane Background, November 8, 1966, p.3
[35] FBI 124-10371-10181, p.16 / FBI Memorandum, Branigan to Miller, November 9, 1971, attachment: Mark Lane background info, p.5; FBI 124-10320-10299 / FBI Correlation Summary on Mark Lane, April 22, 1965, p.10
[36] FBI 124-10249-10160 / FBI Memo, SAC, San Francisco to Director, February 24, 1964; FBI 124-10320-10299 / FBI Correlation Summary on Mark Lane, April 22, 1965, p.22
[37] WC 179-40002-10029 / FBI Letterhead Memorandum (aka CD445a), February 24, 1964, pp.2-3
[38] FBI Letterhead Memorandum (aka CD445a), February 12, 1964, p.2; FBI Letterhead Memorandum (aka CD445a), February 12, 1964, pp.5-6; Secret Service Memorandum (aka CD446b), Hanson to Kelley, February 13, 1964, p.1
[39] FBI Letterhead Memorandum (aka CD445a), February 12, 1964, pp.3-4
[40] FBI Letterhead Memorandum (aka CD445a), February 12, 1964, pp.5-6
[41] FBI 124-10123-10106 / FBI Memo, SA Robert O. Murphy to SAC, Chicago, March 4, 1964; WC 179-40004-10131 / FBI Letterhead Memorandum (aka CD445b), February 20, 1964, p.1
[42] WC 179-40004-10131 / FBI Letterhead Memorandum (aka CD445b), February 20, 1964, pp.1-4
[43] FBI 124-10320-10299 / FBI Correlation Summary on Mark Lane, April 22, 1965, p.10
[44] FBI 124-10371-10166 / FBI Letterhead Memo, Jan. 17, 1964, p.1; FBI 302 Report, SA Lawrence M. Cooper, February 18, 1964, pp.4-6
[45] FBI 124-10320-10299 / FBI Correlation Summary on Mark Lane, April 22, 1965, p.12
[46] CD433, pp.16, 18 / FBI Letterhead Memorandum, February 20, 1964, p.1, Appendix: Young Socialist Alliance, p.3
[47] FBI 124-10247-10130 / FBI Memorandum, SA John Edward Hegarty to SAC NY, March 10, 1964; FBI Letterhead Memorandum (aka CD433), February 19, 1964, p.2; FBI 124-10060-10416 / FBI Informant Report, SAC NY to SAC Atlanta, March 24, 1964, p.1
[48] Note: The Dreyfus affair was a political scandal surrounding French artillery Captain Alfred Dreyfus that divided the Third French Republic from 1894 until its resolution in 1906. The Dreyfus Affair has come to symbolize modern injustice and remains one of the most notable examples of a complex miscarriage of justice and antisemitism. The role played by the press and public opinion proved to be influential in the conflict. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreyfus_affair)
[49] FBI 124-10371-10166 / “TOCSIN Goes to a New York Oswald Defense Meeting,” TOCSIN, Oakland, California, March 4, 1964, Vol.5 No.9, pp.1,3; CD433, Mark Lane KP File, Transcript, February 18, 1964, pp.1-60
[50] FBI 124-10371-10166 / FBI Letterhead Memo, March 5, 1964, p.1
[51] FBI 124-10371-10166 / FBI Memorandum, April 24, 1964, Smith, Jack A., New break on Oswald’s gun,” National Guardian, February 27, 1964, p.1
[52] FBI 124-10371-10166 / FBI Memorandum, April 24, 1964, Smith, Jack A., New break on Oswald’s gun,” National Guardian, February 27, 1964, p.8
[53] WC, Mark Lane KP File, Letter, J. Lee Rankin to Mark Lane, March 18, 1964, p.1
[54] WC, Mark Lane KP File, Letter, Mark Lane to J. Lee Rankin, March 27, 1964, p.1
[55] WC, Mark Lane KP File, Letter, J. Lee Rankin to Mark Lane, April 16, 1964, p.1
[56] FBI 124-10371-10166 / Lotto, Jack, “On Your Guard: Rosenberg-Oswald,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Sunrise Edition, March 2, 1964
[57] FBI 124-10371-10166 / FBI Memo, Branigan to Sullivan, March 13, 1964, p.1
[58] FBI_105-82555_Oswald-HQ-File_Sec104, p.55 / FBI Airtel, SAC NY to Director, March 10, 1964, p.1
[59] FBI 124-10371-10166 / FBI Memo, Branigan to Sullivan, March 13, 1964, p.3
[60] FBI 124-10371-10166 / FBI Memo, Branigan to Sullivan, March 13, 1964, p.1
[61] FBI_105-82555_Oswald-HQ-File_Sec99, p.53 / Letter, Hoover to J. Lee Rankin, re: Gwathmey background, March 16, 1964, attachment, Gwathmey, p.1
[62] Ibid, pp.2-5
[63] Ibid, p.5
[64] FBI 124-10371-10166 / FBI Memo, Branigan to Sullivan, March 13, 1964, p.1; FBI 105-82555, Oswald HQ File, Section 104, p.56 / FBI Airtel, SAC NY to Director, March 10, 1964, p.2
[65] FBI_105-82555_Oswald-HQ-File_Sec99, p.53 / Letter, Hoover to J. Lee Rankin, re: Griswold background, March 16, 1964, attachment, Griswold, p.1
[66] Note: Molina’s 20-year sentence was commuted and he was was released on April 22, 1963, in an RFK negotiated trade for 21 Castro-held Cuban prisoners. (AP, “US Frees 4 Cuban Prisoners in Trade,” The Sacramento Bee, April 23, 1963, Section A, p.1)
[67] FBI_105-82555_Oswald-HQ-File_Sec99, p.53 / Letter, Hoover to J. Lee Rankin, re: Griswold background, March 16, 1964, attachment, Griswold, p.2
[68] Ibid, p.3
[69] Ibid, p.4
[70] FBI 124-10171-10480 / Oct 2017 Release / FBI Airtel, SAC NY to Director, April 1, 1964, p.1
[71] FBI 124-10245-10436 (aka DOCID-32187226.pdf, July 2017 Release) / FBI Airtel, SAC NY to Director, April 6, 1964
[72] FBI 124-10371-10166, pp.29-31 / FBI Letterhead Memo, April 22, 1964, p.2
[73] FBI 124-10371-10166, pp.29-31 / FBI Letterhead Memo, April 22, 1964, pp.2-3
[74] FBI 124-10371-10166, pp.29-31 / FBI Letterhead Memo, April 22, 1964, p.4
[75] FBI 105-82555 Oswald HQ File, Section 136, p.80 / FBI Memorandum, Branigan to Sullivan, April 13, 1964, p.1
[76] FBI_124-10371-10166, pp.103-104 / Appendix, Students for Civil Liberties, pp.15-16
[77] WC 179-40002-10318 / FBI Letterhead Memorandum, March 30, 1964, p.8
[78] FBI_124-10371-10166 / FBI Letterhead Memorandum, March 30, 1964, pp.2-3; FBI_124-10371-10166 / FBI Letterhead Memorandum, March 30, 1964, pp.6-7; FBI_124-10371-10166 / “Hughes, Harold F., “Lawyer Representing Oswald Says President Kennedy’s Slayer ‘Still Walking Around’,” Portland Reporter, March 24, 1964
[79] FBI 105-82555, Oswald HQ File, Sec 143, aka CD897, pp.418-421
[80] 3H304-322
[81] 3H317-318
[82] 3H319
[83] FBI 124-10371-10166, p.136 / FBI Letterhead Memorandum, April 1, 1964, p.1; Note: The passport was issued, March 25, 1964
[84] FBI 124-10371-10166, p.51 / FBI Letterhead Memo, April 21, 1964, p.1
[85] FBI 124-10371-10166, p.51 / Letterhead Memo, April 21, 1964, p.1
[86] FBI 62-109090 Warren Commission HQ File, Additional Releases, pp.48-49 / Letter, Hoover to J. Lee Rankin, April 20, 1964, pp.1-2; FBI 62-109090 Warren Commission HQ File, Additional Releases, pp.46-47 / State Department Telegram, April 6, 1964, 10:13 a.m., p.1; FBI 124-10320-10005 / FBI Report of SA Wayne A. Millward, August 31, 1971, p.14
[87] FBI 124-10371-10166, p.58 / FBI Memo, Legat, Bern to Hoover, April 7, 1964, p.1
[88] FBI 62-109090 Warren Commission HQ File, Additional Releases, p.45 / State Department Telegram, April 7, 1964, 11:29 a.m., p.1
[89] FBI 124-10371-10166, p.108 / FBI Memo, Branigan to Sullivan, April 10, 1964, p.2
[90] FBI 124-10371-10166, p.105 / Department of State Airgram, AmLegation Budapest to Depart. Of State, Wash., DC, April 12, 1964, p.1
[91] WC, Mark Lane KP File, FBI Letterhead Memorandum (aka CD845), April 21, 1964, pp.9-10
[92] WC, Mark Lane KP File, FBI Letterhead Memorandum (aka CD845), April 21, 1964, p.9
[93] WC, Mark Lane KP File, FBI Letterhead Memorandum (aka CD845), April 21, 1964, p.9
[94] FBI 124-10003-10277 / FBI Letterhead Memorandum, August 17, 1964, p.1; FBI 124-10320-10005 / FBI Report of SA Wayne A. Millward, August 31, 1971, pp.14-15
[95] FBI 124-10320-10005 / FBI Report of SA Wayne A. Millward, August 31, 1971, p.15
[96] U.S. Information Service Field Message, Speech by Mark Lane Before Danish Students’ Association, April 14, 1964, pp.1-2
[97] U.S. Information Service Field Message, Speech by Mark Lane Before Danish Students’ Association, April 14, 1964, pp.2-3
[98] FBI 124-10175-10004 / FBI Memorandum, Legat, London to Director, August 31, 1964, attachment: FBI Letterhead Memorandum, Subject: Mark Lane; James Delaney Garst, August 31, 1964, p.1
[99] FBI 124-10244-10335 / FBI Memo, SA James D. Hayes to SAC, Miami, May 11, 1964
[100] FBI 124-10371-10166, p.51 / FBI Letterhead Memo, April 21, 1964, p.1
[101] FBI 124-10371-10166, p.49 / FBI Memo, Branigan to Sullivan, April 21, 1964, p.1
[102] FBI 124-10371-10166, pp.9-11 / FBI Letterhead Memo, Appearance of Mark Lane at University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio, April 21, 1964; pp.1-3; FBI 124-10371-10166, pp.41, 43 / FBI Teletype, April 21, 1964, p.1; FBI Teletype, April 21, 1964, 7:30 p.m., p.1
[103] NARA 124-10371-10044; pp.188-190 / FBI Letterhead Memo, Appearance of Mark Lane at Ohio Museum of Natural History Auditorium, Columbus, Ohio, April 22, 1964; pp.1-3
[104] WC 179-40001-10118 / FBI Letterhead Memorandum, April 30, 1964, pp.1, 2
[105] WC, Mark Lane KP File, Secret Service Report (aka CD869), April 28, 1964, p.1; FBI 124-10371-10166, p.128 / FBI Airtel, SAC NY to Director, April 1, 1964, p.1; FBI 124-10371-10044, pp.86-88 / FBI Letterhead Memo, April 29, 1964, pp.1-3
[106] FBI 124-10371-10166, p.40 / FBI Airtel, April 21, 1964, p.3; FBI 124-10371-10044, p.125 / FBI Letterhead Memo, Mark Lane, April 28, 1964, p.1
[107] FBI 124-10371-10166, p.128 / FBI Airtel, SAC NY to Director, April 1, 1964, p.1; FBI 124-10320-10299 / FBI Correlation Summary on Mark Lane, April 22, 1965, p.22
[108] FBI 124-10371-10187, p.7 / FBI Letterhead Memorandum, Appearance of Attorney Mark lane at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA, on April 28, 1964; May 15, 1964, p.1
[109] FBI 124-10371-10044, pp.1-7; WC, Mark Lane KP File, Letter, J. Edgar Hoover to J. Lee Rankin, April 30, 1964, pp.1-3
[110] WC, Mark Lane KP File, Letter, Mark Lane to J. Lee Rankin, p.1
[111] WC, Mark Lane KP File, Letter, Mark Lane to J. Lee Rankin, pp.1-2
[112] Ibid, pp.1-2
[113] Waldo, Thayer, “Negro to Give Details: Janitor Near-by as Shots Fired,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, February 10, 1964, First Edition, Section 1, p.1
[114] CD735, p.291
[115] CD735, p.291-292
[116] Waldo, Thayer, “Negro to Give Details: Janitor Near-by as Shots Fired,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, February 10, 1964, First Edition, Section 1, p.1
[117] Waldo, Thayer, “Assassin Witness Reported: Quick Denial Made by U.S.,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, February 10, 1964, Second Edition, Section 1, p.1
[118] CD735, p.292; Note: The FBI also contacted Dallas County Sheriff W.E. “Bill” Decker, Dallas Police Chief Jesse E. Curry, and Secret Service SAC Forrest V. Sorrels who all stated that they had no knowledge of any witness being held in protective custody.
[119] CD735, p.291
[120] CD735, p.293
[121] CD735, pp. 293-294
[122] CD735, pp.296-297
[123] FBI 124-10371-10187, pp.127, 131, 136 / FBI Letterhead Memo, Appearance of Mark Lane at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts on April 30, 1964, May 8, 1964, p.1
[124] Ibid, p.5
[125] Ibid, p.10
[126] FBI 124-10371-10187, pp.11, 14-15 / FBI Letterhead Memorandum, Appearance of Attorney Mark Lane at Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts on 4/30/64, May 13, 1964, pp.4-5
[127] FBI 124-10371-10187, pp.171-172, 177-178 / FBI Letterhead Memo, Appearance of Attorney Mark Lane on the Jerry Williams Radio Program, April 30, 1964, Boston, Massachusetts, May 11, 1964, pp.2-3
[128] FBI 124-10371-10187, pp.171-172, 177-178 / FBI Letterhead Memo, Appearance of Attorney Mark Lane on the Jerry Williams Radio Program, April 30, 1964, Boston, Massachusetts, May 11, 1964, pp.7-8
[129] WC, Mark Lane KP File, Letter, J. Lee Rankin to Mark Lane, April 30, 1964, p.1
[130] FBI 124-10371-10187, pp.11, 14-15 / FBI Letterhead Memorandum, Appearance of Attorney Mark Lane at Westfield State College, Westfield, Massachusetts on May 1, 1964, May 15, 1964, p.1
[131] FBI 124-10371-10181, pp.221-222 / FBI Letterhead Memorandum, Appearance of Attorney Mark Lane at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, May 4, 1964; June 11, 1964, pp.1-2
[132] FBI 124-10371-10044, pp.42-43 / Letter, Hoover to J. Lee Rankin, May 19, 1964, pp.1-2; WC 179-40003-10242 / FBI Letterhead Memorandum, May 8, 1964, pp.1-2
[133] WC, Mark Lane KP File, Letter, Mark Lane to J. Lee Rankin, May 6, 1964, p.1
[134] WC, Mark Lane KP File, Letter, Mark Lane to J. Lee Rankin, May 6, 1964, pp.1-2
[135] “Oswald case: A new angle,” National Guardian, New York, May 9, 1964, Vol.16, No.31, p.1
[136] Waldo, Thayer, “Negro to Give Details: Janitor Near-by as Shots Fired,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, February 10, 1964, First Edition, Section 1, p.1
[137] “Oswald case: A new angle,” National Guardian, New York, May 9, 1964, Vol.16, No.31, pp.1, 12
[138] WC, Mark Lane KP File, Letter, J. Lee Rankin to Mark Lane, May 12, 1964, p.1
[139] WC, Mark Lane KP File, Letter, Mark Lane to J. Lee Rankin, May 18, 1964, pp.1-2
[140] WC, Mark Lane KP File, Letter, J. Lee Rankin to J. Edgar Hoover, May 22, 1964, p.1; FBI 105-82555, Oswald HQ File, Section 168, Letter, J. Lee Rankin to J. Edgar Hoover, May 22, 1964, p.1
[141] CD1245 aka CE2579, pp.172-177
[142] CD1245 aka CE2579, pp.176-177
[143] CD1245 aka CE2579, p.177
[144] CD1245 aka CE2579, p.177
[145] CD1168, Interview of James M. “Mike” Howard, May 27, 1964, pp.4-9; CD1245 aka CE2579, Interview of Pat C. Howard, June 2, 1964, pp.178-180
[146] CD1245, p.182
[147] CD1245, pp.182-183
[148] CIA NARA 1993.07.13.15:50:03:000590, Waldo, Thayer (201-43967) February 12, 1968, p.3
[149] FBI 105-82555, Oswald HQ File, Section 175, Airtel, Director to SAC, Dallas, June 5, 1964, p.1
[150] FBI 124-10371-10187, pp.32-35 / FBI Letterhead Memorandum, May 20, 1964, p.2
[151] Ibid, p.3
[152] Ibid, p.5
[153] FBI 124-10371-10187, pp.49-51 / FBI Teletype, May 21, 1964, p.1; FBI Letterhead Memorandum, May 22, 1964, p.1
[154] FBI 124-10320-10005 / Report of Benjamin P. McManus, December 17, 1964, Synopsis
[155] FBI 124-10003-10277 / FBI Letterhead Memorandum, August 17, 1964, pp.1-2; FBI 124-10320-10005 / FBI Report of SA Benjamin P. McManus, December 17, 1964, p.22
[156] FBI 124-10371-10181, p.220 / FBI Letterhead Memorandum, June 4, 1964, p.1, “Who Killed Kennedy?” Guardian, Manchester, England, June 4, 1964
[157] FBI 124-10371-10181, pp.216-217 / “Kennedy: the unanswered questions,” London Tribune, June 19, 1964, p.8] [Re: Caroline Wedgwood Benn (a member of the British “Who Killed Kennedy Committee”) see: FBI 124-10371-10181, p.205 / “Warren Blocks Key Dallas Evidence, Mark Lane Charges”
[158] 5H559
[159] 5H547
[160] 2H547, 550-552, 554-555, 557-559
[161] 5H560, WCT of Mark Lane, July 2, 1964; FBI 124-10371-101081, p.208 / FBI Memo, Jevons to Conrad, July 2, 1964, p.1
[162] Key Persons File, Letter, Mark Lane to J. Lee Rankin, July 3, 1964, p.1
[163] FBI 124-10371-10181, pp.205-206 / “Warren Blocks Key Dallas Evidence, Mark Lane Charges”; “Warren Committee Challenged by Lane,” New York Times, July 8, 1964, p.25
[164] FBI 124-10371-10181, p.199 / FBI Teletype, NY to Director, July 13, 1964, p.2
[165] WC 179-40001-10445, FBI Letterhead Memo, Mark Lane Appearance in Buffalo, New York, February 28, 1964, CD489b, p.25
[166] FBI 124-10371-10181, pp.198-199 / FBI Teletype, NY to Director, July 13, 1964, p.1-2
[167] Key Persons File, Letter, Mark Lane to J. Lee Rankin, July 14, 1964, p.1
[168] Key Persons File, Letter, Mark Lane to J. Lee Rankin, July 14, 1964, p.1
[169] Key Persons File, Letter, Mark Lane to Earl Warren, July 14, 1964, p.1
[170] FBI 124-10030-10094, Key Persons File, Mark Lane, Letter, J. Edgar Hoover to J. Lee Rankin, July 17, 1964, p.1
[171] FBI 105-82555, Oswald HQ File, Section 191, pp.5-33 / FBI Transcript of Mark Lane interview of Helen Markham, pp.3, 25-26
[172] Ibid, pp.3-4
[173] FBI 124-10035-10335 / FBI Airtel, SAC NY to Director, Aug. 5, 1964, p.1; FBI 124-10320-10222 (aka DOCID 32311905) / FBI Airtel, SAC NY to Director, August 6, 1964, p.1; Note: The “female witness no doubt refers to Tippit murder witness Acquilla Clemons.
[174] Note: The FBI later obtains a transcript of the broadcast, provided on July 29, 1964
[175] WMCA transcript, pp.12-13. Note: In an FBI Airtel, SAC Dallas to Director Hoover, Hoover is informed that Lane’s fear of an FCC violation for recording the Helen Markham interview is unfounded since “in Rathburn vs. the United States 355 US 107 (1957), the Supreme court held that it was legal for a person to listen to a telephone conversation with permission from only one party to the conversation. Subsequent decisions of the lower courts have applied this decision to uphold the legality of recording of telephone conversations made with the consent of only one party to the conversation. In view of the above, there is no violation as indicated by Lane.” Also, “The possible UPUC violation was discussed with Attorney Judson W. Bowles, Criminal Division of the Department by SA H.C. Swanson. Mr. Bowles stated in view of Supreme Court ruling no violation exists.” (Dale K. Myers FOIPA No.233,988 / December 31, 1982 / aka FBI 105-82555, Oswald HQ File, Section 201, pp.45-46 / FBI Airtel, SAC Dallas to Director, August 13, 1964, pp.1-2
[176] Dale K. Myers FOIPA No.233,988, December 31, 1982 / FBI 105-82555, Oswald HQ File, Section 201, FBI Letterhead Memo, Aug. 11, 1964, Barry Gray Show Transcript, pp.9-10
[177] FBI 105-82555, Oswald HQ File, Section 202, p.14
[178] FBI 124-10371-10181, pp.149-150 / FBI Teletype, NY to Director, July 22, 1964, pp.1-2
[179] FBI 105-82555, Oswald HQ File, Section 202, p.20 / FBI Letterhead Memorandum, August 4, 1964, p.8
[180] FBI 124-10371-10181, pp.151-152 / FBI Teletype, NY to Director, July 22, 1964, pp.3-4
[181] FBI 124-10371-10181, pp.144-145 / FBI Teletype, NY to Director, July 23, 1964, p.1
[182] FBI 105-82555, Oswald HQ File, Section 202, p.17 / FBI Letterhead Memorandum, August 4, 1964, p.5
[183] FBI 124-10371-10181, pp.144-145 / FBI Teletype, NY to Director, July 23, 1964, pp.1-5
[184] FBI 124-10371-10181, pp.144-147 / FBI Teletype, NY to Director, July 23, 1964, pp.3-4
[185] Kelin, John, Praise from a Future Generation, Wings Press, San Antonio, TX, 2007, pp.62-63, 75
[186] Feldman, Harold, “The Unsinkable Marguerite Oswald,” The Realist, September, 1964
[187] Dale K. Myers FOIPA No.233,988/ June 6, 1984 / FBI Airtel June 27, 1964; FBI 124-10005-10090 aka CE3122, p.1; FBI 124-10371-10181, p.134 / FBI Letterhead Memorandum, Mark Lane, July 31, 1964, pp.1-2
[188] CD1379, FBI Letterhead Memorandum, Mark Lane, July 31, 1964, pp.1-5; Feldman, Harold, “The Unsinkable Marguerite Oswald,” The Realist, September, 1964
[189] Kelin, John, Praise from a Future Generation, Wings Press, San Antonio, TX, 2007, p.502, Fn 42
[190] FBI 124-10005-10090 aka CE3122, p.3-5; CD1379, p.3, 5; FBI 124-10371-10181, p.138 / FBI Letterhead Memorandum, Mark Lane, July 31, 1964, p.5
[191] FBI 124-10371-10181, pp.144-147 / FBI Teletype, NY to Director, July 23, 1964, pp.1-4] [Detailed report on speech: FBI 105-82555, Oswald HQ File, Section 202, pp.13-20 / FBI Letterhead Memorandum, August 4, 1964, pp.1-8
[192] FBI 62-109090, Warren Commission HQ File, Section 18, p.99 / FBI Letter, Director to J. Lee Rankin, August 21, 1964, p.2
[193] Note: in an August 21, 1964, letter from J. Edgar Hoover to Warren Commission chief counsel J. Lee Rankin, Hoover wrote: “…pertaining to our investigation of the allegation made by Mr. Lane alleging the existence of another female eyewitness to the murder of Officer J.D. Tippit. The files of this Bureau fail to disclose that Mr. Lane or anyone associated with him has ever furnished any information to the FBI indicating the existence of a second female eyewitness to the Tippit murder. No such individual has ever been identified by this Bureau and had we knowledge of such a witness you would have been promptly notified.” (FBI 62-109090, Warren Commission HQ File, Section 18, p.99 / FBI Letter, Director to J. Lee Rankin, August 21, 1964, p.1)
[194] FBI 124-10175-10004 / FBI Memorandum, Legat, London to Director, August 31, 1964, attachment: FBI Letterhead Memorandum, Subject: Mark Lane; James Delaney Garst, August 31, 1964, p.2
[195] FBI 124-10320-10005 / FBI Report of SA Wayne A. Millward, August 31, 1971, pp.15-16
[196] FBI 124-10320-10293, FBI Airtel, SAC Newark to Director, February 26, 1965, p.1; FBI 124-10256-10288 / FBI Informant Report, March 4, 1965, p.1; (Re: a Communist front group,” see: FBI 124-10320-10268, FBI Memo, SAC Newark to Director, November 20, 1964, p.1] The speech was sponsored by the Newark, New Jersey, Socialist Worker’s Party (SWP). [FBI 124-10320-10238 / FBI Airtel, SAC Newark to Director, September 3, 1964, p.1
[197] FBI 124-10156-10395 / FBI Memorandum, Legat, London to Director, January 26, 1965, p.1
[198] FBI 62-109060, JFK HQ File, Section 103, p.54 / Mark Lane Background, November 8, 1966, p.4
[199] FBI 124-10320-10467, pp.1-2 / September 15, 1977; FBI 124-10320-10307 / SAC NY to Director, October 4, 1965, p.1
[200] FBI 124-10240-10210 / FBI Memorandum, SA Benjamin P. McManus to SAC NY, February 28, 1966, p.1; prospectus attached; FBI 124-10240-10217 / FBI Report Re; Mark Lane, SAC NY to Director, May 11, 1966, p.3, plus cover page B; FBI 124-10320-10005 / FBI Memorandum, February 25, 1966, p.1
[201] FBI 124-10240-10217 / FBI Report Re; Mark Lane, SAC NY to Director, May 11, 1966, p.7
[202] FBI 124-10240-10217 / FBI Report Re; Mark Lane, SAC NY to Director, May 11, 1966, p.3
[203] FBI 124-10240-10217 / FBI Report Re; Mark Lane, SAC NY to Director, May 11, 1966, p.7; FBI 124-10320-10313 / FBI Memorandum, Legat, London to Director, February 4, 1966, Confidential Letterhead attachment, p.1
[204] FBI 124-10240-10217 / FBI Report Re; Mark Lane, SAC NY to Director, May 11, 1966, p.3, plus cover page B; FBI 124-10320-10005 / FBI Memorandum, February 25, 1966, p.1
[205] FBI 124-10371-10181, p.94 / FBI Memorandum, SAC NY to Director, July 29, 1966, p.1; FBI 62-109060, JFK HQ File, Section A7, p.132 / World Journal Tribune Magazine, New York, Letters to the Editor, Arthur A. Cohen, VP and Editor in Chief, Holt, Rhinehart and Winston, February 27, 1967, p.2
[206] FBI 124-10371-10181, p.116 / FBI Letterhead Memorandum, March 30, 1966, p.2
[207] FBI 124-10371-10181, p.116 / FBI Letterhead Memorandum, March 30, 1966, p.2; FBI 62-109090 WC HQ File, Section 29, pp.30-31 / FBI Letterhead Memorandum, September 13, 1966, pp.2-3
[208] FBI 124-10371-10181, pp.115-116 / FBI Letterhead Memorandum, March 30, 1966, pp.1-2
[209] FBI 124-10371-10181, pp.117-118 / FBI Letterhead Memorandum, March 30, 1966, pp.3-4
[210] FBI 124-10371-10181, p.108 / FBI Letterhead Memorandum, March 3, 1966, p.1
[211] FBI 124-10371-10181, pp.108-111 / FBI Letterhead Memorandum, March 3, 1966, p.1
[212] FBI 124-10371-10181, pp.108-111 / FBI Letterhead Memorandum, March 3, 1966, p.2
[213] FBI 124-10371-10181, pp.108-111 / FBI Letterhead Memorandum, March 3, 1966, pp.2-3
[214] FBI 124-10371-10181, pp.108-111 / FBI Letterhead Memorandum, March 3, 1966, p.4; SA Gemberling identification: FBI 124-10371-10181, p.107 / FBI Airtel, SAC Dallas to Director, March 31, 1966
[215] FBI 124-10371-10181, p.94 / FBI Memorandum, SAC NY to Director, July 29, 1966, p.1; FBI 62-109060, JFK HQ File, Section A7, p.132 / World Journal Tribune Magazine, New York, Letters to the Editor, Arthur A. Cohen, VP and Editor in Chief, Holt, Rhinehart and Winston, February 27, 1967, p.3
[216] FBI 124-10371-10181, p.94 / FBI Memorandum, SAC NY to Director, July 29, 1966, p.1; FBI 62-109060, JFK HQ File, Section A7, p.132 / World Journal Tribune Magazine, New York, Letters to the Editor, Arthur A. Cohen, VP and Editor in Chief, Holt, Rhinehart and Winston, February 27, 1967, p.2
[217] FBI 62-109090, Warren Commission HQ File, Section A5, pp.67-68 / “Lawyers Clash: More Controversy in Assassination,” San Francisco Chronicle, November 18, 1966
[218] Gelmis, Joseph, “Film defending Oswald Previewed,” Newsday, January 14, 1967, p.7
[219] Reuters, “Film of ‘Rush to Judgment’ Has Its Premiere on BBC,” The Montreal Star, January 30, 1967, p.26; Lewis, Richard Warren, “Writers Hit ‘Pay Dirt’ by Attacking Warren Report,” The Indianapolis Star, February 5, 1967, Section 1, p.10, column 2
[220] FBI 62-109090, p.18 / FBI Memorandum, Jones to Wick, February 2, 1967, p.1
[221] FBI 124-10320-10360 / FBI Memorandum, Legat, London to Director, February 9, 1967, p.1
[222] FBI 124-10320-10366, p.3 / FBI Memorandum, Legat, London to Director, March 1, 1967, p.1, with attachment
[223] FBI 62-109090, Warren Commission HQ File, Additional Releases, pp.160-168 / Department of State Airgram, American Embassy, Dublin, to Dept of State, March 10, 1967, pp.1-2, plus attachments
[224] FBI 124-10320-10389 / FBI Report of Benjamin P. McManus, January 9, 1968, Cover page B
[225] FBI 124-10371-10181, pp.55-57 / FBI Memorandum to CIA by Liaison, August 23, 1967, pp.1-3 – Declassified: May 20, 1998; FBI 124-10320-10384 / FBI Memorandum, Branigan to Sullivan, November 7, 1967, pp.1-2
[226] FBI 124-10320-10384 / FBI Memorandum, Branigan to Sullivan, November 7, 1967, p.1
[227] FBI 124-10371-10181, pp.22-23 / FBI Airtel, SAC Dallas to Director, May 2, 1968, pp.1-2; FBI 124-10073-10001 / FBI Airtel, SAC Dallas to Director, May 2, 1968, pp.1-2
[228] FBI 124-10098-10125 / FBI Memorandum, Bassett to Callahan, February 3, 1975, p.1; FBI 62-109060, JFK HQ File, Section 103, pp.47-59 / FBI Letter, Director to Watson, November 8, 1966, with attachments
[229] Trento, Joseph J., “The Secret History of the CIA”, (Forum, Prima Publishing, 2001) pp.474-475
[230] Andrew, Christopher and Vasili Mitrokin, “The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB,” Basic Books, New York, 1999, ISBN 0-465-00310-9, p.228 (Note: There is no evidence Lane knew the source of the funding.); CIA 104-10332-10004 / Letter, Barry Harrelson to Fred Wickham, June 21, 1996, Re: AARB request to FBI re Mark Lane, attachment: Vasili Mitrokin Archive, Vol.6, Chapter 14, Part 3 (excerpt), pp.2-5
[231] Andrew, Christopher and Vasili Mitrokin, “The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB,” Basic Books, New York, 1999, ISBN 0-465-00310-9, p.228
[232] Andrew, Christopher and Vasili Mitrokin, “The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB,” Basic Books, New York, 1999, ISBN 0-465-00310-9, p.228; CIA 104-10332-10004 / Letter, Barry Harrelson to Fred Wickham, June 21, 1996, Re: AARB request to FBI re Mark Lane, attachment: Vasili Mitrokin Archive, Vol.6, Chapter 14, Part 3 (excerpt), pp.2-5
[233] CIA 104-10332-10004 / Letter, Barry Harrelson to Fred Wickham, June 21, 1996, Re: AARB request to FBI re Mark Lane, attachment: Vasili Mitrokin Archive, Vol.6, Chapter 14, Part 3 (excerpt), pp.1-2; CIA 104-10014-10071 / ARRB Release October 18, 1999, Vasili Mitrokin Archive, Vol.6, Chapter 14, Part 3 (excerpt), pp.1-2; Note: Genrikh Averyanovich Borovik (Russian: Ге́нрих Аверьянович Борови́к; born 16 November 1929 in Minsk) is a Soviet and Russian publicist, writer, playwright and filmmaker, the father of journalist Artyom Borovik. According to Vasili Mitrokhin, Borovik was a KGB agent in the United States, one of whose successful projects was promotion of false John F. Kennedy assassination theories through writer Mark Lane. In 1967, as senior APN correspondent in the USA, Borovik was reported to have "sounded out the possibility of broadcasting a program about Vietnam on the network of one of the largest American television corporations.” He also wrote a book about famous Soviet spy Kim Philby. Borovik was the fourth and the last chairman of the Soviet Peace Committee, in the years 1987–1991.
[234] CIA 104-10332-10004 / Letter, Barry Harrelson to Fred Wickham, June 21, 1996, Re: AARB request to FBI re Mark Lane, attachment: Vasili Mitrokin Archive, Vol.6, Chapter 14, Part 3 (excerpt), pp.2-3; CIA 104-10014-10071 / ARRB Release October 18, 1999, Vasili Mitrokin Archive, Vol.6, Chapter 14, Part 3 (excerpt), pp.2-3
[235] Golz, Earl, “Alleged Oswald letter checked for its authenticity by FBI agents,” Dallas Morning News, February 6, 1977, Section A, p.5; Golz, Earl, “Alleged Oswald note: FBI can’t determine authenticity of letter,” Dallas Morning News, February 6, 1977, Section A, p.9
[236] Waldron, Martin, “Assertions About Oswald Confronting House Group,” New York Times, April 4, 1977, p.50
[237] CIA 104-10332-10004 / Letter, Barry Harrelson to Fred Wickham, June 21, 1996, Re: AARB request to FBI re Mark Lane, attachment: Vasili Mitrokin Archive, Vol.6, Chapter 14, Part 3 (excerpt), pp.3-4; CIA 104-10014-10071 / ARRB Release October 18, 1999, Vasili Mitrokin Archive, Vol.6, Chapter 14, Part 3 (excerpt), pp.3-4
[238] Holland, Max, “The JFK Lawyer’s Conspiracy: Forty-two years later, assassination buffs continue to attack the validity of the Warren Report,” The Nation, February 20, 2006 / https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/jfk-lawyers-conspiracy
[239] Holland, Max, “The JFK Lawyer’s Conspiracy,” The Nation, February 20, 2006; Letter to the Editor from Mark Lane, The Nation, March 20, 2006 / https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/november-22-1963-you-are-there
[240] Letter to the Editor from Max Holland, The Nation, March 20, 2006 / https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/november-22-1963-you-are-there
I think the activities of Mark Lane would not have upset the American political establishment. The last thing anyone in authority wanted was for people to focus on Oswald’s communism; and his possible links with Cuba and by extension the Soviet Union. America had already been brought to the brink of war over Cuba in 1962. It did not want a re-run of that.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I believe Oswald acted alone, but a right-wing version of Mark Lane could have caused much more damage than the real Lane with all his communist connections.