Page 4-Saturday, March 24, 1979-The Michigan Daily
Congressional
accoustics experts prove
second
gunman was involved in Kennedy assassination
The conclusion of Congressional
experts that shots were fired at
President John F. Kennedy from more
than one location provides the first
scientific corroboration to the long-
argued theory that a second gunman
was involved in the Dallas murder. It
also raises serious questions as to why
the Warren Commission gave such
scant attention to-or overlooked en-
tirely-critical evidence 'contradicting
the single-assassin theory.
According to the Warren Com-
nMission, Lee Harvey Oswalk fired three
the Commission investigators-who
had already offended the highly sen-
sitive Dallas police in preliminary in-
terviews-were anxious to avoid fur-
ther offense by demanding the original
tapes instead of the transcripts.
From the start, however, the Com-
mission was aware of other evidence
which cast doubt on-it not completely
refuted-the theory that only three
bullets were fired, and all from the
School Book Depository.
MANY, PERHAPS most, of the wjt-
nesses in Dealey Plaza who testified
By Peter Dale Scott
"But new analysis of tapes re-
corded by the Dallas police at the time
of the shooting has now led accoustics
eperts for the Congressional Subcom-
mittee on Assassinations to conclude
that a fourth shot was fired from a
grassy knoll- in front and to the right
of the President."
railrod yard and to the top of the triple
underpas-points both farther west and
in front of the President's cavalcade
rather than to the rear and the area of
the School Book Depository.
DOCTORS WHO first treated the
President at Parkland Hospital repor-
ted that he had been struck from the
front by a bullet in the throat. Dr.
Malcolm Perry, in sworn testimony
supported by other doctors in the
trauma room, told the Commission that
the throat wound was "rather clean
cut" and thus characteristic of an en-
trance wound rather than an exit
wound.
In addition to these facts perhaps the
most compelling evidence available to
the Commission suggesting that more
than three shots were fired was the
existence of nine injuried resulting
from the shootings: three to the
President, five to Governor Connally
and one to James Tague, a bystander.
The explanation evolved by the
Warren Commission for how three
bullets inflicted all nine wounds hinged
on what critics have called the single
bullet theory: one bullet accounted for
seven wounds suffered by both the
President and the governor. That
bullet was allegedly recovered un-
scathed on a stretcher in Parkland
Hospital where it had fallen out of
Governor Connally's thigh.
BUT MANY EXPERTS have since
questioned this theory, including Dr.
Cyril Wecht, the coroner of Pittsburgh
and a member of the panel of medical
experts convened by the present House
Committee. Wecht points, in particular,
to the testimoiy of Connally, both im-
mediately after the shooting and in sub-
sequent interviews, that he was shot
some time after the first bullet hit the
President.
Connally's recollection is strongly
corroborated by the famous Zapruder
film, one of the three films taken by.
bystanders during the shooting, which
shows the governor reacting to the im-
pact of being shot not simultaneously
but just after the President.
Besides challenging the "single
bullet" theory, the Zapruder film also
supplied visual evidence to corroborate
those witnesses who claimed shots had
been fired from the front rather than
the rear of the President.
THAT EVIDENCE is the so-called
head snap suffered by the President af-
ter the fatal shot which shattered his
skull. Immediately after the 313th
frame of the Zapruder film-where this
shot clearly occurs-the President's
head is unmistakeably snapped with
considerable energy to his left and rear,
as it hit from the right and in front by a
marksman standing somewhere on the
grassy knoll. This head snap is so ob-
vious on a reasonably good print of the
film that its significance was brought to
the attention of authorities by
numerous citizens who saw it.
While the head snap of the Zapruder
film indicated a frontal shot, the official
autopsy report prepared by military
doctors in Bethesda, Maryland-after
the Parkland surgeons' preliminary
examination-concluded the opposite.
According to the Bethesda doctors,
whose findings were subsequently ac-
cepted by both the Parkland doctors
and the Warren Commission, Kennedy
had been struck by two bullets from
behind. Medical experts convened by
the House Assassination Committee, in -
examining the medical evidence con-
tained in the National Archives, had
also concluded that it was incompatible
with the theory of a frontal wound of en-
trance.
Since 1964, experts in fact have
disagreed about the significance of the
head snap and have put forward both
ballistic and neuromuscular ex-
planations -to reconcile a snap to the
rear with the theory of a shot from the
rear.
NONETHELESS, THE fact that the
Commission knew of the head snap yet
never dealt with it reinforces questions
about how open-endedly it pursued the
possibility that a second gunman was
involved, shooting from a position other
than the School Book Depository.
In general, the Warren Commission's
evasiveness concerning the case for a
gunman on the grassy knoll may well
have been counter-productive. Critics
immediately asked why many wit-
nesses had never been interviewed who
in previous statements has supported
the assassintions. It was one of these
tapes on which a researcher claimed to
have detected as many as seven shots
that was forwarded to the House
Assassintion Committee and its
acoustics experts. Although this tape
was eventually ruled to have no eviden-
tiary value, the Committee's inquiries
to the Dallas police department
resulted in the provision of tapes and
dictabelts of better quality for analysis.
It was from acoustical analysis of this
material-analysis using simple and
straight-forward techniques available
in 1963-that experts now have con-
Nonetheless,
the fact that the
Commission knew of the head snap yet
never dealt with it reinforces questions
about how open-endedly it pursued the
possibility that a second gunman was
involved, shooting from position other
than the School Book Depository.
and only three shots from a location
behind the President-the sixth floor of
the Texas School Book Depository.
Commission experts determined that
Oswald Gould not have fired more than
three shots at the President with the
gun he used.
BUT NEW ANALYSIS of tapes
recorded by the Dallas police at the
time of the shooting had now led ac-
coustics experts for the Congressional
Subcommittee on Assassinations to
conclude that a fourth shot was fired
from a grassy knoll in front and to the
right of the President.
The Commission, which examined
only transcripts of the police tapes, had
never analyzed the original recordings.
According to independent researchers,
about the origin of the shots pointed not
to the Book Depository but to some
position further west, along the grassy
knoll. One testified he had actually seen
someone suspicious leaving the scene.
And a Dallas policeman told the Com-
mission he had met a man on the knoll
who had identified himself as a Secret
Service agent-although there were no
Secret Service agents in the area.
The three films taken by eyewit-
nesses of the incident confirmed that
many bystanders-including a motor-
cycle policeman from the parade-ran
up to the railway yard at the top of the
knoll, immediately after the shooting.
Orders by law enforcement officials
recorded in the transcripts of the Dallas
police tapes directed their men to the
the grassy knoll theory. They attacked
as misleading an Appendix to the
Report which strengthened the case
against Oswald by ruling out the
possibility of a gunman on the railway
bridge, without revealing that most of
the witnesses it cited had actually
argued in favor of a gunman on the
grassy knoll. Allegations of an official
cover-up in this area began within mon-
ths of the publication in September 1974
of the Warren Report. They were
strengthened as bootleg prints of the,
Zapruder film were screened, att first
to college audiences but eventually on,
national television and to Congressmen
and their staffs.
Meanwhile over the years assassin-
tibn researchers listened carefully to
private copies of the official tapes of the
two Dallas police radio channels during
cluded, with 95 per cent probability,
that a shot was indeed fired from the
grassy knoll.
Acceptaned of this analysis may well
represent the most powerful impact the
science of acoustics has ever had on
humrnn history.
Peter Dale Scott, a professor of
English at the University of Califor-
nia-Berkeley, has authored or edited
numerous articles and books on
covert politics, foreign and
domestic, including most recently
The Assassinations: Dallas and
Beyond (Random House, 1976)
and Crime and Cover-up (West
works, 1977). He is one of the
foremost independent researchers
on the history of the Kennedy
assassinations. He wrote this article
for the Pacific News Service.
--
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Eighty-Nin Years of Editorial Freedom
Vol. LXXXIX No. 138
News Phone: 764=0552
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Health care for everyone
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a
W HEN PRESIDENT CARTER
criss-crossed the country during
his 1976 presidential campaign, he
promised the American people a com-
prehensive national health care plan.
gut the package revealed Thursday by
the Carter Administration shows that
the president has not kept his promise;
the administration's proposed health
dare package falls far short of the kind
of a plan the American people need to
combat rapidly rising health care
costs.
The president's proposal, which
Would cost the taxpayers from $10
billion to $15 billion, only provides
health care assistance to those who
Must pay catastrophic amounts. What
about those individuals and families
who must still pay for the' expensive
health care-though it may not be
catastrophic? The administration's
package would not affect them. Health
care costs in this country have been
escalating throughout the past decade;
the president's plan would be a weak
ffort toward a long-lasting solution.
Though the specifics of the program
have not been released, informed
sources claim the plan would demand
that states provide Medicaid coverage
for the poor who currently are not
eligible, and would limit costs for the-
elderly under Medicare.
While those provisions are certainly
an improvement from the current
system, the president's plan fails to
soften the tough financial burden the
majority of Americans must bear
when paying for health care. It affects
only the most serious illhesses of a
minority and does nothing to alleviate
the day-to-day cost of prescription
fpi-q nhv-,ieian's fees- nd outpatient
minor compared to major surgical
operations and long-term therapy, but
the small costs are the ones that add up
until they become unbearable.
But a better plan does exist.
Senator Edward Kennedy (D-
Massachusetts), who has repeatedly
criticized the Carter Administration
for failing to adopt a comprehensive
plan, will introduce his proposed
package next month. Kennedy's
proposal would provide coverage for
all Americans for various kinds of
costs, and not for just the catastrophic
ones.
Congress should move quickly to
pass Kennedy's legislation so that the
effects of a. national health care plan
can be measured as soon as possible.
Carter's plan would not take effect un-
til 1983, but the American people need
a plan now before inflation makes it too
late.
Carter's plan is dangerous because it
threatens to get approval from the
liberal members of Congress who may
see Kennedy's proposal as having no
chance of getting through the fiscal
conservatives on Capitol Hill. These
conservatives may perceive Carter's
proposal as a real solution to the health
care problem without costing the
government an enormous piece from
the total budget. But they should
ignore the president's plan and finally
provide health care assistance to all
Americans.
Carter's compromise on health care
legislation dashes the hopes he raised
among the people with his campaign
rhetoric. As it turns out, it was only
rhetoric.
hienhm '1'h Q"aI L
Letters
Aidi
/
"
To the Daily:
I am writing in response to
William, Neenan's "obser-
vations" of Public Law 105, an
act providing a "tuition differen-
tial grant" of up to $600 per
semester to private and religious
college students.
YIis financial analysis of PL 105
is far from complete. It is true,
that in its first year of operation,
the Act will provide tuition
assistance totaling $6.2 million.
However, by the time the plan is
fully implemented in 1981, the
expenditure will amount to bet-
ween $20 million and $30 million
per year. Clearly this amount
does not begin to approach the
magnitude 'of state funding for
public schools, nor should it, sin-
ce private and religious schools
provide instructor for only 14 per
cent of all students in higher
education. Total support for
private colleges has actually in-
creased 215 per cent in 13 years,
25 per cent from 1977 to 1978,
while funding for public colleges
has actually declined in terms of
real dollars.
Public Law 105 provides these
"tuition grants" irrespective of
demonstrated financial need.
Private and religious college
students have been assisted by
the State since 1966. Last year,
$13 million was provided for this
is not fulfilling its responsibility
to public schools, public school
students and the taxpayers and is
doing so to the benefit of the priv-
ate and religious institutions,
which are receiving a dispropor-
tionate amount of the quickly
shrinking funds for education.
Neenan also points to the
University of Detroit ascan
example of a private school
which does not discriminate. I
honestly and strongly question,
whether the minority enrollment
at U of D is characteristic of all
private and religious schools
around the State. Is the minority
enrollment as a whole in private
schools any higher than that of
the admittedly low public in-
stitution level? Also, his
argument to draw sympathy for
PL 105, by relating the aid toa
single school as a corollary to the
uplifting of Detroit's culture, is
clearly obfuscating the issue and
bordering on pathetic.
PL 105, by funding religious in-
stitutions, is counter to one of this
nation's fundamental principles:
the separation of church and
state. The Act does direct itself to
this problem by:
1) denying aid to those studen-
ts "enrolled in a program of
study leading to a degree in
theology or divinity," and,
2) denying aid to students
the student rather than directly
funding the institution. This does,
not, however, eliminate the
moral injustice of the law.
The petition drive to put PL 105
on the ballot is in its final stages.
I do not concur with Neenan's
assumption that the public is in-
capable of forming "reasoned
and responsible legislation."
State taxpayers have a right, as
funders of PL 105, to determine
its fate. It is more than a fiscal
issue, and I disagree with
Neenan's assertion that it is a
"minor" one, it is also a legal and
moral issue of to what extent can
the State and religious in-
stitutions combine.
The State has a responsibility
to fund public institutions and.
also an obligation to the people of
the State of Michigan to
represent their wishes. The State
Legislature and Gov. Milliken by
implementing PL 105 have
faulted both duties.
-Dan Solomon
March 19, 1979
Vietnam
Hte schools
We have always defended the
gains of the Chinese revolution
victorious in 1949. Compare, for
example, China with India which
received "independence" from
Britain in 1948.
HOWEVER, THOSE gains, and:
the heroic Chinese workers and:
peasants who fought for them,"
are not identical with the ruling-
bureaucracy which is a parasitic:
undemocratic andstreacherous:
caste similar to some of the:
criminal union bureaucrats here:
in the U.S.
Both Mao and Teng have orb
numerous occasions betrayed the
interests of workers and peasants
for selfish short-term cone
siderations. To name a recent
example in addition to the in
vasion of Vietnam, recall
Bangladesh, in which Mao sup-
ported the Pakistani military
butchers with arms shipments.
The invasion of Vietnam came
on the heels of Teng's talks in
Washington with Carter. Only the
most naive will believe that Viet-
nam was not discussed by Teng
and Carter and that the military
industrial complex which Carter
really represents did not give its
tacit anoroval or more likely en-