'Is Oswald Guilty?

[An article attempting to establish the innocence of Lee Harvey Oswald appeared in the National Guardian on Dec. 19. The CRIMSON has excerpted from it an analysis of the confused and contradictory evidence showered upon the public by the national news media, in order to show that this evidence constitutes no proof of Oswald's guilt. Reprinted by permission of the National Guardian.]

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Immediately after Oswald was slain, the Dallas district attorney, Henry Wade, announced that the "Oswald case was closed."...The Justice Department then announced that the case was not closed. Wade called a press conference to "reopen" the case. In a radio and television statement, publicized throughout the world, Wade presented "the evidence, piece by piece, for you."...Wade presented 15 assertions, some mere conclusions, some with a source not revealed, some documented....

A number of witnesses saw Oswald at the window of the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository.

....Wade was unequivocal, stating, "First, there was a number of witnesses that saw the person with the gun on the sixth floor of the bookstore building, in the window--detailing the window--where he was looking out." Subsequently, it developed that the "number of witnesses" was in reality one witness, who was quoted as follows: "I can't identify him, but if I see a man who looks like him, I'll point him out." (Newsweek--Dec. 9)...

Oswald's palm print appeared on the rifle.

...The FBI now states that "no palm prints were found on the rifle.

This conclusion, first carried in the Fort Worth press, was later leaked to reporters by the FBI in off-the-record briefing sessions. The FBI at that time took the position that "we don't have to worry about prints in this case." The FBI indicated anger with Wade for stating that a palm print was present when in fact it was not.

Paraffin tests on both hands showed that Oswald had fired a gun recently.

Paraffin is applied to that portion of the human body which might come in close contact with the gas (released by a weapon's firing) containing solid particles of burned nitrates in suspension. To determine whether a pistol (i.e., a gun) has been fired, tests are made of both hands. To determine whether a rifle has been fired, tests are made of both hands and the area on both sides of the face near the cheekbone, the cheek remaining in immediate contact with a rifle when the trigger is pulled.

In the service, as any veteran, including Wade, well knows, a rifle is always referred to as a rifle. It is never, under fear of company punishment, called a gun (pistol). At Wade's press conference, this dialogue took place:

Reporter: What about the paraffin tests?

Wade: Yes. I've got paraffin tests that showed he had recently fired a gun--it was on both hands.

Reporter: On both hands?

Wade: Both hands.

Reporter: Recently fired a rifle?

Reporter: A gun.

Wade: A gun.

Wade's answers, while truthful, were a study in understatement. The district atorney neglected to state the additional facts that tests had been conducted on Oswald's face and that the tests revealed that there were no traces of gunpower on Oswald's face (Washington Star, Nov. 24). One fact emerges here with clarity. The paraffin test did not prove Oswald fired a rifle recently. The test tended to prove Oswald had not fired a rifle recently.... The rifle, an Italian carbine, had been purchased by Oswald through the mall and under an assumed name.

Wade said, "It (the rifle), as I think you know, has been identified as having been purchased last March by Oswald, from a mail-order house, through an assumed name named Hidell, mailed to a post office box here in Dallas." Wade said this was the weapon that killed the President....

Just after the arrest of Oswald, Dallas law enforcement officials announced that they had found the murder weapon. Wade and his associates studied the rifle. It was shown to the television audience repeatedly as some enforcement official carried it high in the air, with his bare hands on the rifle. After hours of examination, Wade said without hesitation that "the murder weapon was a German Mauser."

The next day it was reported that FBI files showed that Oswald purchased an Italian carbine through the mail. It was sent to a post-office box maintained by Oswald in his own name and also A. Hidell. (Clearly no serious effort to escape detection as the purchaser of the rifle was made by Oswald, if he did purchase it.)

Armed with the knowledge that Oswald could be connected with an Italian carbine (it then not being known that the Italian rifle in question might not be able to fire three times in five seconds), Wade made a new announcement. The murder weapon was not a German Mauser, it was an Italian carbine....

Oswald had in his possession an Identification card with the name Hidell.

Wade said, "On his (Oswald's) person was a pocketbook. In his pocketbook was an identification card with the same name (Hidell) as the post-office box on it."

Almost immediately after Oswald was arrested the police asserted that he was guilty of assassination, was a Communist, was the head of the New Orleans Fair Play for Cuba Committee, and had used an alias, "Lee," the name under which he had rented his $8-a-week room. The following day, after the FBI had revealed that Oswald had purchased a rifle under the assumed name Hidell, the Dallas DA announced for the first time that Oswald had carried an identification card under the assumed name Hidell on his person when he was arrested the previous day.

Oswald was seen in the building by a police officer Just after the President had been shot.

Wade said, "A police officer, immediately after the assassination, ran into the building and saw this man in a corner and tried to arrest him; but the manager of the building said he was an employe and it was all right. Every other employe was located but this defendant of the company. A description and name of him went out to police to look for him." (At this point it might be in order to state that all of the Wade quotations are reproduced unedited, and in their entirety. The text of the Wade remarks appeared in the New York Times, Nov. 26.)

Unexplained by Wade is why the officer was going to arrest Oswald, who was sipping a soft drink in the lunchroom along with others. If the officer had reason to single out Oswald for arrest for the assassination at that time, it seems unlikely that the mere statement that Oswald was an employe might result in immunity from arrest....

Oswald's wife said that the rifle was missing Friday morning.

Wade said, "The wife had said he had the gun the night before, and it was missing that morning after he left." All indications are from statements made by other law officials and from FBI private briefings that Mr. Oswald had never been quoted as saying anything remotely similar to Wade's assertion.

Mrs. Oswald was alleged to have said, at the very most, that she saw something in a blanket that could have been a rifle. However, it soon became plain that the Secret Service "leak" was itself absolutely inaccurate.

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Oswald, while taking a bus from the scene, laughed loudly as he told a woman passenger that the President had been shot.

Wade said, "The next we hear of him is on a bus where he got on at Lamar Street, told the bus driver the President had been shot, the President. [He] told the lady--all this was verified by statements--told the lady on the bus that the President had been shot. He said, 'How did he know? He said a man back there told him. The defendant said, 'Yes, he's been shot' and laughed very loud."

Wade, in telling his story, made no attempt to explain how Oswald escaped from the building sealed off by scores of Dallas police. We leave that mystery to enter a new one. Why did Oswald, fleeing the scene of a murder, joke publicly about the murder? Why did he "laugh very loud?" Such behavior is hardly, consistent with 48 hours of consistent denial of guilt when in custody of the Dalles authorities. The laughter on the bus story seemed so unlikely that the FBI, in off-the-record briefing sessions for the press, conceded that it was untrue.

A taxi driver, Darry Click, took Oswald home, where he changed his clothes.

Wade said, "He then--the bus, he asked the bus driver to stop, got off at a stop, caught a taxicab, Driver Click--I don't have the exact place--and went to his home in Oak Cliff, changed his clothes hurriedly, and left."

On Nov. 27, it was conceded that "Darryl Click" did not drive a taxicab in which Oswald was a passenger. When "Darryl Click" disappeared from the case, "William Whaley" appeared as the man who drove Oswald, not home, but at least in that general direction....

Oswald, it is alleged, eventually le bus after riding about six blocks and was walking "from Commerce Street" when the taxicab driver, now named "William Whaley" saw him. Oswald, it is alleged, hailed the taxi, and entered it. "William Whaley's" log shows that Oswald entered the taxi, after having completed this entire trip, at exactly 12:30 p.m. The shots that killed Kennedy were fired at 12:31 p.m.

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A map was found in Oswald's possession showing the scene of the assassination and the bullet's trajectory.

The day after Wade's historic press conference, and three days after the Oswald arrest a new discovery was made.

"Today Mr. Wade announced that authorities had also found a marked map, showing the course of the President's motorcade, in Oswald's rented room. 'It was a map tracing the location of the parade route,' the district attorney said, 'and this place [the Texas School Book Depository, a warehouse from which the fatal shots were fired] was marked with a straight line.' Mr. Wade said Oswald had marked the map at two other place, 'apparently places which he considered a possibility for an assassination.'" (New York Times, Nov. 25.)

Oswald's palm print appeared on a cardboard box found at the window.

Wade stated, "On this box that the defendant was sitting on, his palm print was found and was identified as his." Inasmuch as a palm print is not always uniquely identifiable, depending on the number of characteristics that are readable, the palm print very likely was not definitely "identified as his."

It had been alleged earlier that the defendant ate greasy, fried chicken at the window. The presence of a palm print indicates that he wore no gloves and took no precautions to prevent a trail of fingerprints and palm prints. Nevertheless, no prints of the defendant were found on the floors, walls, window ledge, window frame or window. Only a movable cardboard carton, subsequently present at the police station while the defendant was also there, is now alleged to have his print....

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A map was found in Oswald's possession showing the scene of the assassination and the bullet's trajectory.

The day after Wade's historic press conference, and three days after the Oswald arrest a new discovery was made.

"Today Mr. Wade announced that authorities had also found a marked map, showing the course of the President's motorcade, in Oswald's rented room. 'It was a map tracing the location of the parade route,' the district attorney said, 'and this place [the Texas School Book Depository, a warehouse from which the fatal shots were fired] was marked with a straight line.' Mr. Wade said Oswald had marked the map at two other place, 'apparently places which he considered a possibility for an assassination.'" (New York Times, Nov. 25.)

Oswald's palm print appeared on a cardboard box found at the window.

Wade stated, "On this box that the defendant was sitting on, his palm print was found and was identified as his." Inasmuch as a palm print is not always uniquely identifiable, depending on the number of characteristics that are readable, the palm print very likely was not definitely "identified as his."

It had been alleged earlier that the defendant ate greasy, fried chicken at the window. The presence of a palm print indicates that he wore no gloves and took no precautions to prevent a trail of fingerprints and palm prints. Nevertheless, no prints of the defendant were found on the floors, walls, window ledge, window frame or window. Only a movable cardboard carton, subsequently present at the police station while the defendant was also there, is now alleged to have his print....