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Without Question:
Francis X. O'Neill

Mr. O'Neill continues: Mr. Kilduff said something about a bullet in the brain. Well, he was right. That really did knock off the back of the brain, back side of the president's head. Whether he was pointing here, whether that picture got him as he was moving his finger back, I don't know. Photographs do many funny things. Movies do many funny things as time goes on. Credible evidence? Question mark.

Dealey Plaza. Many people heard many different things that day. Many people were in many different places that day in Dealey Plaza. I've been there. These gentlemen [Evica and Cheslock] here have been there. If you fire a shot, is it going to echo back? I don't know. Could be. Could be. You have a backfire on a car, is it going to sound like a shot twenty-six or twenty-seven years later when you take it out of a police vault, and what happened to it in the police vault? God knows. This is an open microphone that a police officer had, and was recorded in the police headquarters, and for some reason never came forward until the House Subcommittee [sic] on Assassinations "discovered" it in 1978 when I was interviewed and I have my affidavit here [six]. And the Warren Commission said that they believed it's possible, probable -- did they say, "Yes there was a conspiracy." "No there was no conspiracy." No. Lee Harvey Oswald was about the only gentleman who had this instinct, or whatever you want to call it, to kill the president. He had the opportunity, he had the means, he was a paranoid, he had attempted suicide in the past, he had attempted murder in the past. It's the same rifle which killed the president of the United States. Lee Harvey Oswald did it. Believe me, and we can get into it later on. These are just comments, by the way. Just comments on what we've heard. Thank you.

Mr. Evica responds to a question from Mr. Hamilton about the rifle found in the Texas School Book Depository, with emphasis on calibre and length.

Mr. O'Neill: Just one or two statements. I'm not an apologist for the Warren Report. I'm not an apologist for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The Federal Bureau of Investigation does not need an apologist. This book is out of print, right now. This is the summary of the Warren Report (holding up what appears to be the Warren Report.) You don't have to go to twenty-six volumes of the Warren Report to find chain of evidence. You'll find it right in this book. For the information which was obtained relative to the ordering of the weapon, the purchase of the weapon, the reception [sic] of the weapon, the weapon being taken into the Book Depository by Lee Harvey Oswald, the firing of the weapon and the testing of the weapon. Bob Frazier is a very close friend of mine and one of the most astute examiners in rifles that this government has ever had. Bear in mind now, we're not going with spectrographic machines and we're not going with the different things which are available to individuals today. We're basing this information on information and the state-of-the art which was available thirty years ago. Nothing, to this day, has disproved most of the information in the Warren Report, and I'll stand by that. If I'm wrong, prove it in court.

Mr. Cheslock continues discussion of the rifle and its length with reference to the paper sack purportedly found in the "sniper's nest." He shows the Mentesana footage indicating that a rifle was found on the roof of the Book Depository.

For the benefit of the student audience, Ms. Saunders discusses the process people go through in interpreting information to arrive at the truth, using the rifle found in the Book Depository as an example. Mr. Evica expands this theme to point out confusing aspects underpinning CE 399 and the ballistics data. He shows the Zapruder film while discussing the single-bullet theory.

Mr. O'Neill: I was the agent assigned to Andrews Air Force Base, and I'd been out there many times. I was out there when Eisenhower was the president, when Kennedy was the president, when Johnson was the president and when Nixon was the president. I used to meet [sic] the president's plane take off and return-not all the time, but many occasions. I had jurisdiction over Air Force One. Air Force One was the plane that the president rode on. It could have been any plane because any plane the president flies on is Air Force One. At this particular time I think it was a DC10-3600, something like that.

When I heard that the president had been shot, I called up my office in Baltimore and told them that I was going out to Andrews Air Force Base to take care of any jurisdiction that the FBI might have. Number one, crimes on government reservations; number two, theft of government property; number three, espionage; number four, sabotage; number five, assaulting federal officers. Remember, we did not have a federal statute at that time saying that it was a federal crime to assassinate the president of the United States. [Five] in the jurisdiction, where the particular crime occurred. At Andrews I spoke to Robert T. Best, who was in my report-I'm sure that most of you have seen that report, if not, I have copies of it up here-who was the provost marshal, told him that the plane was going up to Andrews. They were not aware that the plane was coming to Andrews. We found out about it; we told them. We told that the base commander, we also told it to the individual who was the eh, eh, eh-the base commander, the provost marshal and-the judge advocate, who, by the way is also from my law school-I mean from my college. I had good contacts out there. So what we did was, we then let as many people come on the base as we could and when we, eh, had enough people round there they said, "Wait a minute, let's close it down. This place is being innovated [sic] with people." The only people who were allowed on the base thereafter were the members of Congress, the members of the diplomatic staff still in Washington, DC, members of the Supreme Court, any members of the, eh, of the, eh, the Cabinet which were not already flying out to Japan-since most of them were on that particular plane-and the press, and the newsreel cameras.

We got word that the plane was going to land about six o'clock. About a moment after it landed, which would have been about 6:01 or something like that, while it was still out in the far extense [sic] of Andrews Air Force Base, I was advised by the head of the OSI [Office of Special Investigations?] on the base that Mr. Hoover had called directing me to call my office in Baltimore. I called Baltimore and the word was Hoover said, "Stay with the body-and get whatever information you can find there, which might indicate a crime or which may indicate some evidence of a crime which had been committed." Fine. Spoke, right away, to Jim Rowley who was the director of Secret Service, told him what Hoover had told me to do-he put me into the car, the same car in the motorcade with Pamela Turner who was the secretary-who was the press secretary to Mrs. Kennedy, and with the White House valet at that time. Bear in mind, now, at this particular time, Bobby Kennedy had come the base. He walked up the stairs. He walked to the back of the plane. The back of the plane opened up and you'll see that he's there with Jacqueline Kennedy, Kenny O'Donnell and, I think, one or two other individuals, and they are assisting moving the casket out of the plane, putting it onto this great big dolly which was up in the air there.

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