What happened to the Mauser?

[Walt Cakebread]

Fritz , Boone and Weitzman would recant their stories and all would say they had been mistaken all along. Roger Craig examines the rifle up close ( 6 to 8 inches ) and he saw "7.65 Mauser" stamped on the barrel. He further states that Weitzman saw it too and pointed it out . Importantly , it should be pointed out here--that no signed or sworn Affidavit by any police officer involved with the finding of the rifle listed it as a Mannlicher-Carcano--only as a Mauser .

 Roger Craig examines the rifle up close ( 6 to 8 inches ) and he saw "7.65 Mauser" stamped on the barrel. He further states that Weitzman saw it too and pointed it out .

It's a shame that Roger Craig was a liar....  And even more unfortunate that he went to his grave without recanting the lies.

[Jack Trojan]

Roger Craig examines the rifle up close ( 6 to 8 inches ) and he saw "7.65 Mauser" stamped on the barrel. He further states that Weitzman saw it too and pointed it out .

It's a shame that Roger Craig was a liar....  And even more unfortunate that he went to his grave without recanting the lies.

Considering what happened to him, why the hell would Craig lie? You have to believe that he was mentally ill before the Big Event otherwise he wouldn't have turned into a lying conspiracy nutjob and killed himself with a .22 caliber rifle shot to the chest.

And you still haven't told us where the "7.65" came from. No one would have known that was the caliber of a Mauser, except maybe the conspirators. And Craig wasn't the only one. Seymour Weitzman swore an affidavit that it was not only a Mauser, but model 7.65. He later recanted, but he was smart to do so, unlike Craig. Weitzman was in the Air Force and his experience with guns was with Thompson machine guns and pistols, not Mausers. So I ask again, where did he and Craig come up with the 7.65, which they 1st claimed to have read off the barrel?

You believe this was a conspiracy, don't you? Do you believe there were any shots taken from the 6th floor? If so, do you believe the unreliable MC was used to take the shots? That's what the Mauser was for. But Keystone cop Fritz botched up the crime scene many times over. Doesn't this sound like a Fritz gaffe to you? "Oops, just put the Mauser back where you found it and get the MC behind those boxes over there. Nothing to see here folks..move along."

[Jerry Freeman]

It certainly goes to show that even if/though the rifle was misidentified, nobody seemed to want to own up to the mistake. 

Typically, if there was something/anything that pointed away from the official story...it was a mistake/error/inaccuracy/boo boo.

[Mitch Todd]

Considering what happened to him, why the hell would Craig lie? You have to believe that he was mentally ill before the Big Event otherwise he wouldn't have turned into a lying conspiracy nutjob and killed himself with a .22 caliber rifle shot to the chest.

That's beside the point. Craig's "7.65 Mauser" story isn't in his 11/22/63 report, not in his FBI 302 and not in his testimony to the WC. In the 67/68 interview with Penn Jones, he said that the 6th floor rifle was a Carcano, but a Mauser was found on the roof. He didn't mention the Mauser in his '69 testimony in the Shaw trial. There is also no mention of "7.65 Mauser" in his 1971 work "When They Kill a President." The earliest I know for sure that he brought up seeing "Mauser 7.65" on the rifle was the "Two Men in Dallas" video, made in 1975. It took 12 years for him to bring it up, despite having plenty of opportunity to do so.

And, it ought to be noted that neither Mary Ferrell nor Harold Weisberg believed him.

And you still haven't told us where the "7.65" came from. No one would have known that was the caliber of a Mauser, except maybe the conspirators. And Craig wasn't the only one. Seymour Weitzman swore an affidavit that it was not only a Mauser, but model 7.65. He later recanted, but he was smart to do so, unlike Craig. Weitzman was in the Air Force and his experience with guns was with Thompson machine guns and pistols, not Mausers. So I ask again, where did he and Craig come up with the 7.65, which they 1st claimed to have read off the barrel?

In the late 1950's and early 60's, Argentina was unloading a lot of their old model 1891 Mausers. Those were chambered in 7.65. The M1889/1891 Mausers are fairly unique for the brand in that they use a single-stack magazine that extends below the forestock like you see on a Carcano. Later Mausers (ie, 1893 and up) use a two-stack magazine that is completely contained within the stock. Someone who had some experience with the Argentine rifles but not too much else could easily look at a Carcano and assume from the magazine that it was a 7.65.

Weitzman spent something close to a year running a chain names Lamont's. Over the years, I've seen Lamont's described as either a regional department store, or a small chain of sporting goods stores. I don't think anyone has ever nailed down exactly what it was, though it has to be the source of Weitzman's "I was in the sporting goods business" comment in his WC testimony. But he only did it for about a year, and was overseeing the sale of a panopoly of sporting goods beyond guns, so he didn't pick up too much experience from the job.

[Jake Maxwell]

Craig's daughter seems very, very angry toward her father, which would seem to taint her perspective on her father's testimony... After reading Craig's story and the many pressures on his family from bad luck, bad health, bad decisions, I would think that much of her anger could be the result of that.

Craig's short book, gives an overview of his life, and his testimony about the events he witnessed November 22, 1963 - http://www.conspiracybomb.com/killapresident.htm
It is insightful reading... and seems to have a "ring" of truth to it... Very interesting....

[Mike Orr]

What reason was there for Roger Craig to say that the rifle that was found on the 6th floor was a 7.65 Mauser and not a 6.5 Mannlicher Carcano ? Weitzman said it was a 7.65 Mauser also . If it said 7.65 Mauser on the barrel , then it was a Mauser . Chevys don't have Ford emblems on them . This rifle had markings on it and all you had to do was read what was on the rifle . The DPD & Bethesda made so many bad decisions that weekend and that is why it took 26 volumes of the WC to try and convince everyone that LHO was just a lone nut who thought he would kill John F Kennedy with a rifle and kill JD Tippit with a revolver. The crap that was made up about LHO got very deep that weekend . You people who believe the Warren Report , must have drank the Kool-Aid. Good Luck in the future !

[Steve Howsley]

That's a knockout blow James considering it came from MF herself.