Kind of interesting: The dissenting voices on the HSCA

[Lance Payette]

As we all know, the HSCA's finding of a probable conspiracy looms large in the conspiracy gospel. Mere dilletante that I am, I had never read the dissents to the HSCA report. There were only 12 HSCA members, and four of them had concerns.

Today, I decided to take a break from reading Jennifer Aniston gossip and stumbled upon this: https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/select-committee-report/part-4.html.

Technically, there were two dissents - Robert W. Edgar and Harold S. Sawyer - and two separate remarks - Christopher J. Dodd and Samuel L. Devine (joined by Edgar). They are well worth reading.

I was impressed by how thoughtful and well-informed these guys were. Their very legitimate concern was what a last-minute railroad job the finding of conspiracy actually was. History has been far kinder to them than to the finding of a probable conspiracy, but you won't hear that when the conspiracy gospel is preached.

To give you the flavor, here is Edgar:

I agree with the December 13, 1978, first draft of our final report which states on page 64:

The committee finds that the available scientific evidence is insufficient to find that there was a conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy.

Up to that moment in the life of the committee, we were prepared to go to the American people with this conclusion. Only after the report of Mark R. Weiss and Ernest Aschkenasy, in the 11th hour of our investigation, was the majority persuaded to vote for two gunmen and a conspiracy. I respectfully dissented.

The use of the term conspiracy does a disservice to the understanding of the American public. As was again noted in our draft report on page 51:

Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes defined conspiracy as "a partnership in criminal purposes? A conspiracy cannot be said to exist unless evidence is found from which such a partnership may be inferred."

We found no evidence to suggest a conspiracy. We found no gunmen or evidence of a gunman. We found no gun, no shells, no impact of shots from the grassy knoll. We found no entry wounds from the front into any person, including President John Kennedy and Gov. John Connally. We found no bullets or fragments of bullets that did not belong to the Oswald weapon. And we found little, if any, evidence of partnership with Lee Harvey Oswald. Few credible ear-witness accounts back up the marginal findings of our acoustics experts.

He concludes:

C. Did we rush to a conspiratorial conclusion?

I believe that exhibit "A" will clearly demonstrate a rush to conspiratorial conclusions. You will note three sets of black letter findings. The first in column 1, was presented to the committee for its consideration on Monday, December 18, 1978 (the date of the draft was December 13, 1978). It was on that Monday that we met in executive session to discuss our findings and come to our final conclusions. It was also that Monday when Weiss and Aschkenasy interrupted our session to share their final report. Less than 2 weeks later, on December 29, 1978, we met in public session to review the report finding. That evening at approximately 6 p.m., we began to consider draft No. 2, dated December 29, 1978, and found in column 2 of exhibit "A." The final released document appears in column 3. Note the changes within such a short span of time.

I believe the Members of Congress did not have sufficient time or expertise to ask the tough questions. I believe the committee failed to properly consider how much weight to assign this evidence due to our own limitations of time and familiarity with the science. I believe we rushed to our conclusions and in doing so, overshadowed many important contributions which other aspects of our investigation will have on history. We did a great job up to the last moment, when in our focus on the acoustics, we failed to give proper weight to other findings of the investigation.

Here is Sawyer:

As a threshold premise, it should be noted that I believe it is important that despite the lapse of 15 years and at least two independent investigations, one by the Warren Commission and the other by this committee, which by any investigatory standards were exhaustive, no other evidence or even what might be termed a "scintilla" of evidence has been uncovered which would substantiate a conspiracy or which tends to negate the fact that Oswald operated alone. Those facts, which have been highly exploited by the cult of assassinologists and writers, namely errors and inadequacies in original autopsy testimony, the alleged invalidity of the "single-bullet" theory, the alleged "cropping" of the so-called backyard pictures, and the apparent backward motion of the president's head as shown in the Zapruder film, have been, in my opinion, totally discredited or explained beyond any reasonable doubt by evidence developed by this committee.

After pretty well eviscerating the Dictabelt evidence, he concludes:

Under the foregoing circumstances and giving due weight to both items of physical and circumstantial evidence which I deem to be contradictory to the expert opinions, and what I find to be a less than satisfactory series of presentations by Dr. Barger, and the unpersuasive conclusions of Dr. Weiss and his colleague from Queens College I do not accept the acoustical testimony and the conclusions flowing from it. Instead, I remain persuaded of the accuracy of my earlier submitted proposed findings of facts and recommendations, a copy of which for reference I attach hereto.

[Michael T. Griffith]

As we all know, the HSCA's finding of a probable conspiracy looms large in the conspiracy gospel. Mere dilletante that I am, I had never read the dissents to the HSCA report. There were only 12 HSCA members, and four of them had concerns. Today, I decided to take a break from reading Jennifer Aniston gossip and stumbled upon this: https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/select-committee-report/part-4.html. Technically, there were two dissents - Robert W. Edgar and Harold S. Sawyer - and two separate remarks - Christopher J. Dodd and Samuel L. Devine (joined by Edgar). They are well worth reading.

I was impressed by how thoughtful and well-informed these guys were. Their very legitimate concern was what a last-minute railroad job the finding of conspiracy actually was. History has been far kinder to them than to the finding of a probable conspiracy, but you won't hear that when the conspiracy gospel is preached.

To give you the flavor, here is Edgar: [SNIP]

Here is Sawyer:

After pretty well eviscerating the Dictabelt evidence, he concludes: [SNIP]

Only someone poorly read on the JFK case would argue that the three HSCA dissenters--Edgar, Devine, and Sawyer--were "thoughtful and well-informed," and that Sawyer "eviscerated" the acoustical evidence. Their dissents contain numerous inexcusable errors and distortions, including their false claim that the "first draft" of the HSCA report rejected conspiracy, a claim that HSCA chief counsel G. Robert Blakey debunked. The three dissenters were determined to reject the acoustical evidence from the outset and did not understand or just ignored the expert testimony and reports provided by the acoustical experts, Barger, Weiss, and Aschkenasy. Edgar in particular asked some genuinely dumb questions during Weiss and Aschkenasy's testimony as he reached and strained to deny the hard science of the acoustical evidence.

Was there a reason that you failed to mention that Dodd fully accepted the acoustical evidence and the conspiracy finding? His only objection was that he did not believe Oswald could have fired the second shot because it came only 1.66 seconds after the first shot. He correctly concluded that another gunman must have fired that shot.

Three of the seven WC members, nearly half of the Commission, disagreed with several of the Commission's key conclusions, while only three of the 12 HSCA members dissented from the Select Committee's key conclusions. However, the WC report says nothing--not one word--about the fact that three of the seven members disagreed with some of the Commission major claims. It is a testament to how much better and more credible the HSCA was that the HSCA included dissenting views in its final report. The WC promised Senator Russell that his dissent would be noted in the report, but it was not.

We now know from WC whistleblower Morris Wolff that WC member Senator John Sherman Cooper did not buy the SBT, did not believe Oswald acted alone, and did not buy the whitewash of Ruby's Mafia ties. Cooper thought the WC's investigation was "slipshod." Wolff has revealed that it was Cooper who leaked Jack Ruby's testimony to journalist Dorothy Kilgallen. Wolff was Senator Cooper's aide. He rode with Cooper to the WC hearings and attended many of the hearings with him.

Dani Biancolli discusses Senator Russell's objections:

          With these points before him, Richard Russell forced a final Executive Session of the Warren Commission. His main agenda was to present his prepared dissent and to refuse to sign the Commission Report unless his dissent was included. After presenting his concerns, Russell was joined in his dissent by Senator John Sherman Cooper and to a lesser extent Representative Boggs. In an oral history conducted late in his life, Senator Cooper recalled that Russell’s well-reasoned opinions “had great influence” on Cooper’s own conclusions. Like Russell, Cooper was impressed by the strong and compelling testimony of Governor Connally and thus was willing to follow Russell’s lead in rejecting the “single bullet” theory. (Dani Biancolli, The First Dissenter: Richard B. Russell and the Warren Commission, Master of Arts thesis, 2002, William and Mary University, https://scholarworks.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5464&context=etd)

And:

          In his final television interview, Russell stated that he “never believed that Oswald planned that altogether by himself. There were too many things, the fact when he was at Minsk, and that was the principal center for educating Cuban students. There were 600 or 700 there. He was very close to some of them and the trip that he made to Mexico City and a number of discrepancies in the evidence as to, or conflicts in the evidence as to his means of transportation, the luggage he had, and whether or not anyone was with him, caused me to have doubts that he planned it all by himself. I think someone else worked with him.” (https://scholarworks.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5464&context=etd)

To get some idea of the unserious, amateurish objections that the three HSCA dissenters raised to the acoustical evidence, see my article on the subject:

The HSCA's Acoustical Evidence: Proof of a Second Gunman
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KvdvH8gTqFgMn-2vTI5ppg_egWxRKg9U/view?pli=1

[Tom Graves]

[Senator] Richard Russell forced a final Executive Session of the Warren Commission. His main agenda was to present his prepared dissent and to refuse to sign the Commission Report unless his dissent was included. After presenting his concerns, Russell was joined in his dissent by Senator John Sherman Cooper and to a lesser extent Representative Boggs. In an oral history conducted late in his life, Senator Cooper recalled that Russell’s well-reasoned opinions “had great influence” on Cooper’s own conclusions. Like Russell, Cooper was impressed by the strong and compelling testimony of Governor Connally and thus was willing to follow Russell’s lead in rejecting the “single bullet” theory. (Dani Biancolli, The First Dissenter: Richard B. Russell and the Warren Commission, Master of Arts thesis, 2002, William and Mary University, https://scholarworks.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5464&context=etd)

In his final television interview, Russell stated that he “never believed that Oswald planned that altogether by himself. There were too many things, the fact when he was at Minsk, and that was the principal center for educating Cuban students. There were 600 or 700 there. He was very close to some of them and the trip that he made to Mexico City and a number of discrepancies in the evidence as to, or conflicts in the evidence as to his means of transportation, the luggage he had, and whether or not anyone was with him, caused me to have doubts that he planned it all by himself. I think someone else worked with him.” (https://scholarworks.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5464&context=etd)

Dear Comrade Griffith,

Maybe Senator Russell was "right as five rabbits" (as my mother used to say), but didn't realize that the "evil, evil" CIA was controlled by probable KGB "moles" Bruce Leonard Solie (look him up) and Leonard V. McCoy (ditto) and by J. Edgar Hoover's shielded-from-CIA FEDORA (KGB Major Aleksei Kulak) at the FBI's NYC field office from early 1962 to 1977.

-- Tom

[Lance Payette]

Golly, I do seem to be getting under Michael's skin! Well, I suppose that's a badge of honor of sorts. He has apparently worn out his welcome at the Ed Forum, so I'm happy to provide an outlet for his conspiracy mania. If I didn't exist, Michael would have to invent me.

I will admit my base of knowledge does not include the "debunking" by Blakey to which Mr. G. refers, but I do know that page 501 of the HSCA dissents includes (as Exhibit A) a finding-by-finding comparison of the Black Letter Findings of the "Draft, Dec. 13, 1978 final report," the "Draft findings, Dec. 29, 1978, 6 p.m.," and the "Final report" of December 29, 1978.

In those two weeks, the findings changed from "insufficient evidence" to find a conspiracy to a "high probability" of a conspiracy based solely on "acoustical evidence." A high probability, I tell you!

I also know - as you surely do as well - that the acoustical evidence has been pretty well shredded and that the dissenters now seem rather prescient and statesmanlike (except, of course, in Michael's goofy little corner of the world, where the HSCA and every other investigative body overlooked at least 5,000 pieces of obvious conspiracy evidence; the HSCA merely reached the "right" conclusion for the wrong reason.)

Anyway, I merely posted the dissents and separate remarks because I had not read them before (oh, the shame) and found them interesting. Not as interesting, of course, as the Jennifer Aniston gossip to which I now return.

[Jake Maxwell]

Only someone poorly read on the JFK case would argue that the three HSCA dissenters--Edgar, Devine, and Sawyer--were "thoughtful and well-informed," and that Sawyer "eviscerated" the acoustical evidence. Their dissents contain numerous inexcusable errors and distortions, including their false claim that the "first draft" of the HSCA report rejected conspiracy, a claim that HSCA chief counsel G. Robert Blakey debunked. The three dissenters were determined to reject the acoustical evidence from the outset and did not understand or just ignored the expert testimony and reports provided by the acoustical experts, Barger, Weiss, and Aschkenasy. Edgar in particular asked some genuinely dumb questions during Weiss and Aschkenasy's testimony as he reached and strained to deny the hard science of the acoustical evidence.

Was there a reason that you failed to mention that Dodd fully accepted the acoustical evidence and the conspiracy finding? His only objection was that he did not believe Oswald could have fired the second shot because it came only 1.66 seconds after the first shot. He correctly concluded that another gunman must have fired that shot.

Three of the seven WC members, nearly half of the Commission, disagreed with several of the Commission's key conclusions, while only three of the 12 HSCA members dissented from the Select Committee's key conclusions. However, the WC report says nothing--not one word--about the fact that three of the seven members disagreed with some of the Commission major claims. It is a testament to how much better and more credible the HSCA was that the HSCA included dissenting views in its final report. The WC promised Senator Russell that his dissent would be noted in the report, but it was not.

We now know from WC whistleblower Morris Wolff that WC member Senator John Sherman Cooper did not buy the SBT, did not believe Oswald acted alone, and did not buy the whitewash of Ruby's Mafia ties. Cooper thought the WC's investigation was "slipshod." Wolff has revealed that it was Cooper who leaked Jack Ruby's testimony to journalist Dorothy Kilgallen. Wolff was Senator Cooper's aide. He rode with Cooper to the WC hearings and attended many of the hearings with him.

Dani Biancolli discusses Senator Russell's objections:

          With these points before him, Richard Russell forced a final Executive Session of the Warren Commission. His main agenda was to present his prepared dissent and to refuse to sign the Commission Report unless his dissent was included. After presenting his concerns, Russell was joined in his dissent by Senator John Sherman Cooper and to a lesser extent Representative Boggs. In an oral history conducted late in his life, Senator Cooper recalled that Russell’s well-reasoned opinions “had great influence” on Cooper’s own conclusions. Like Russell, Cooper was impressed by the strong and compelling testimony of Governor Connally and thus was willing to follow Russell’s lead in rejecting the “single bullet” theory. (Dani Biancolli, The First Dissenter: Richard B. Russell and the Warren Commission, Master of Arts thesis, 2002, William and Mary University, https://scholarworks.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5464&context=etd)

And:

          In his final television interview, Russell stated that he “never believed that Oswald planned that altogether by himself. There were too many things, the fact when he was at Minsk, and that was the principal center for educating Cuban students. There were 600 or 700 there. He was very close to some of them and the trip that he made to Mexico City and a number of discrepancies in the evidence as to, or conflicts in the evidence as to his means of transportation, the luggage he had, and whether or not anyone was with him, caused me to have doubts that he planned it all by himself. I think someone else worked with him.” (https://scholarworks.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5464&context=etd)

To get some idea of the unserious, amateurish objections that the three HSCA dissenters raised to the acoustical evidence, see my article on the subject:

The HSCA's Acoustical Evidence: Proof of a Second Gunman
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KvdvH8gTqFgMn-2vTI5ppg_egWxRKg9U/view?pli=1

I appreciate your reasoned response and knowledge on the subject.
I read your article. Makes me wonder if the HSCA dissenters had some hidden agenda, since they seem to have been so bent on dissenting... Thanks for sharing.

[Lance Payette]

I appreciate your reasoned response and knowledge on the subject.
I read your article. Makes me wonder if the HSCA dissenters had some hidden agenda, since they seem to have been so bent on dissenting... Thanks for sharing.

Jake, you are the first person in, oh, maybe 25 years to use "reasoned response" in reference to a post by Michael! I thank you on behalf of Michael fans everywhere. Now he owes it to you to comment favorably on one of your photo analyses. The ball is in your court, Michael - do not let us down.

I do think the HSCA dissenters had a hidden agenda. It's called "not being made to look like fools."

More seriously, good old Wikipedia has a pretty good overview of the ups and downs of the acoustics evidence: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy_assassination_Dictabelt_recording#Criticism. I would also invite you to take a look at Mark Tyler's analysis of what he calls the acoustics evidence "red herring": https://www.marktyler.org/mc63/mc63_handbook.pdf (it begins on page 41). Bear in mind, this discredited stuff was the sole basis on which the HSCA found a conspiracy, notwithstanding Andy Purdy admitting even now that "the entire staff wanted and expected to find a conspiracy" and were "shocked" when those damn expert panels didn't take the bait.

You do illustrate the same problem that I had when I was a gung-ho CTer: Folks like Michael, and Simpich, and Newman, and assorted others, certainly sound as though they know what they are talking about (and, as we see here, anyone who disagrees with them is dismissed as "naive," "poorly informed," "not a serious researcher," yada yada). If you take them at face value and lap it up - as I did, for quite a while - it is very easy to be wowed by their work. These guys are the Real Deal! We can trust them as though they were the high priests of our CT religion!

Start looking behind the curtain for yourself, however, and you are likely to have an epiphany: These guys are CRANKS, borderline (or worse) nutcases. Their work is a stream of factoids and speculation that simply won't withstand scrutiny. Unless you are as obsessive-compulsive about the JFKA as they are, you will never be able to expose all their nonsense - and you wouldn't shut them up even if you did.

All you can do is what I have done: pick an assertion here and there and thoroughly check it out. EVERY DAMN TIME, the assertion proves to be false, or so half-assed or misleadingly out of context as to be false. Pretty soon, your favorite high priest - Newman, Di Eugenio, Morley, Armstrong, Michael (?) - is exposed as a CRANK whose agenda - whatever the hell it is - has nothing to do with historical truth.

Just like in a real religion, most CT believers are lazy characters who enjoy the show and would rather trust their priests than think for themselves, not to mention that their conspiracy-prone psychology leads them in this direction anyway. The parallels with real religion are quite stark. Truly, "reasoned response" in the same sentence as "Michael Griffith" is an oxymoron. He is a 32nd-degree CRANK.

[Jake Maxwell]

Jake, you are the first person in, oh, maybe 25 years to use "reasoned response" in reference to a post by Michael! I thank you on behalf of Michael fans everywhere. Now he owes it to you to comment favorably on one of your photo analyses. The ball is in your court, Michael - do not let us down.

I do think the HSCA dissenters had a hidden agenda. It's called "not being made to look like fools."

More seriously, good old Wikipedia has a pretty good overview of the ups and downs of the acoustics evidence: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy_assassination_Dictabelt_recording#Criticism. I would also invite you to take a look at Mark Tyler's analysis of what he calls the acoustics evidence "red herring": https://www.marktyler.org/mc63/mc63_handbook.pdf (it begins on page 41). Bear in mind, this discredited stuff was the sole basis on which the HSCA found a conspiracy, notwithstanding Andy Purdy admitting even now that "the entire staff wanted and expected to find a conspiracy" and were "shocked" when those damn expert panels didn't take the bait.

You do illustrate the same problem that I had when I was a gung-ho CTer: Folks like Michael, and Simpich, and Newman, and assorted others, certainly sound as though they know what they are talking about (and, as we see here, anyone who disagrees with them is dismissed as "naive," "poorly informed," "not a serious researcher," yada yada). If you take them at face value and lap it up - as I did, for quite a while - it is very easy to be wowed by their work. These guys are the Real Deal! We can trust them as though they were the high priests of our CT religion!

Start looking behind the curtain for yourself, however, and you are likely to have an epiphany: These guys are CRANKS, borderline (or worse) nutcases. Their work is a stream of factoids and speculation that simply won't withstand scrutiny. Unless you are as obsessive-compulsive about the JFKA as they are, you will never be able to expose all their nonsense - and you wouldn't shut them up even if you did.

All you can do is what I have done: pick an assertion here and there and thoroughly check it out. EVERY DAMN TIME, the assertion proves to be false, or so half-assed or misleadingly out of context as to be false. Pretty soon, your favorite high priest - Newman, Di Eugenio, Morley, Armstrong, Michael (?) - is exposed as a CRANK whose agenda - whatever the hell it is - has nothing to do with historical truth.

Just like in a real religion, most CT believers are lazy characters who enjoy the show and would rather trust their priests than think for themselves, not to mention that their conspiracy-prone psychology leads them in this direction anyway. The parallels with real religion are quite stark. Truly, "reasoned response" in the same sentence as "Michael Griffith" is an oxymoron. He is a 32nd-degree CRANK.

Thank you for the reasoned response... It seems the theory of gunshot recordings on the dictabelt has been thoroughly debunked by most contemporary experts in the field... Was this the only factor that turned the HSCA toward conspiracy?