Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - January 15, 1965, Winnipeg, Manitoba G free press fh1uav, january 15, 1h65 prof. Trevor Roper answers his critic the Warren report three by Hugh Trevor Roper London special the sunday times John Sparrow contests my criticism of the. Warren report on two main grounds. He accuses me generally of seeking to undermine the report by innuendo without offering any positive theory of my own he Chal Lenges my particular Evi Dence. I certainly did not wish to gain any ends by innuendo if i did not Advance a rival theory it was because i have nothing so positive to Advance. Lack of Confidence in one set of conclusions does not require positive support for another. But before coming to the detail perhaps it is Best to recapitulate very briefly what i said what i did not say. I did not propose or mean to suggest a vast conspiracy i explicitly stated that i distrust conspiratorial solutions. I did not state that the conclusions of the War Ren report were necessarily wrong i explicitly stated that though unproved they could be right. I did not doubt the Bona fides of the commission. What i said was that its composition was highly unset Isaac by Liis i did not of course mean to ascribe antecedent i meant that its members were nearly All Busy politicians. One of them was so Busy that he attended Only two out of its 44 sessions. I also said that its methods were ill calculated to guarantee the truth that it had relied mainly on what would have been in any trial of Oswald prosecution witnesses i.e., wit Nesses found by the police that it had shown insufficient Independence of the prosecuting agencies i.e., it had accepted with too Little question their material their interpretation. Sensitive the commission itself is obviously sensitive to this charge. It protests that although no defence counsel was allowed adequate pro vision was made to ensure fairness to the now to take or. Spar Row s particular i said that there was evidence that Oswald took the gun into the Book depository nor that he fired or. Sparrow contests this. But what in fact is the evidence Only two witnesses saw Oswald enter the building. Both of them testified that he carried a parcel but both equally testified that the parcel was such that it simply could not have contained the gun even Dis mantled. The commission accepts ingrown Nail just a few drops of or. Scholl s of Nixon relieves soreness pain. Softens embedded Nail soothes inflamed tissue. Aids natural Nail growth. Of Nixon Rural municipal of North Kildonan Public notice court of revision on the 1965 business assessment Roll Public notice is hereby coven that the metropolitan Board of revision will sit to hear complaints against the above mentioned assessment Roll of the municipality of North Kil Donan for the year 1965 on tues Day february 16th, 1965 at the municipal office 1400 Hender Ion Highway at . Persons desiring to complain their assessment myst Lodge their complaints in writing in the office of the municipal clerk by february 8th, 1965. The assessment Roll has been deposited in the office of the clerk will remain open to the inspection of All persons for a period of fifteen Days from the Date of this notice. Dated at North Kildonan in Manitoba this 15th Day of Janu Ary . 1965. L. E. Klump. Municipal clerk the Rural municipality of North Kildonan their evidence that he car ried the parcel but rejects their detailed insistent description of the parcel. As or. Sparrow puts it both witnesses mis Estima Ted its this begs the question. Anyway they did not merely estimate they described circumstantially explicitly exclusively. This is what i mean by the commission s Choice of nobody identified Oswald As having fired the gun. Admittedly one Man How Brennan described the Marksman in terms sufficiently precise to be in the commission s words most probably the basis of the search for Oswald. But it is interesting that whereas in other connections several persons identified Oswald whom they had generally seen on Tele vision in police line ups which he complained were unfairly arranged which were admitted by the police to be unusual in the one Man who could not identify him was this same or. Brennan whose description had been so precise. Inaccurate the report says that he did identify him but this As or. Brennan s testimony shows is As i wrote Oswald May have introduced fired the gun. But there is no positive evidence that he did either my words Are strictly True. Or. Sparrow next takes me up on the commission s phrase most words the Circum stances seemed to me unpardonable vague caused me to describe the report As he Points out that elsewhere the report uses the word this Little fact had not escaped me. But i had also noticed that this word which is anyway hardly less vague than most prob occurs Only in the summary not in the report itself. I therefore ignored it. It is merely a summarised s faulty rendering does nothing to Correct the vagueness of the report. Now we come to the medical evidence. I think this is really fairly Clear. It is not merely a question As or. Sparrow would have it of a Rumor arising out of a press conference. This is the impression Given by the report but for clarity we should go behind the report to the testimony. There we see that the doctors at the Parkland Hospital were generally agreed. They regarded the wound in the president s Throat As an Entrance wound they Only Al Lowed that it might have been an exit wound on the strength of outside evidence. As or. Perry put it with the facts which you have made available with these assumptions i believe that it was an exit even so they Only accepted this interpretation on condition that the Bullet was of Low so Low that you might think that this Bullet barely made it through the soft tissue just enough to drop out of the skin on the opposite yet the commission having accepted the conclusion did not accept this necessary condition of it. Incompatible it could not do so because its further theory required it to believe that this same Bullet so far from just dropping out of the front of the president s neck went on to pass right through the body of governor Connally a belief incidentally quite incompatible with the Testi Mony of gov. Connally himself who insists that after hearing the first shot which hit the president he had time to turn round to the right then to the left before being hit himself. It is thus True to say that there is a discrepancy bet Ween the original medical evidence the police theory. Round 1 new Home recipe reducing plan simple How quickly one May lose pounds of unsightly fat right in your own Home. Make this Home recipe yourself. It s easy no trouble at All costs Little. Just go to your drag store ask for four ounces of Naran concentrate. Pour this into a pint bottle enough Grapefruit juice to fill the bottle. Take two Tablespoons full a Day As seeded follow the Naran flan. If your first Purchase does not How you a simple easy Way to lose Bulky fat help regain slender More Graceful curves if reducible pounds end inches of excess fat Don t disappear from neck Chin arms Abdomen hips calves Ankles just return the empty bottle for your Money Back. Follow this easy Way endorsed by Many who have tried this plan help bring Back alluring curves Graceful slenderness. Note How quickly bloat much bet Ter you feel. More alive Youthful appearing Active. On dec. 22 the free press carried a London times statement by Hugh Trevor Roper regius professor of history at Oxford attacking the discrepancies Between the Warren report its accompanying evidence. He suggested that the commission had put up a smoke screen labelled the report on dec. 29 a sunday times article by John Sparrow lawyer writer Warden of All souls College Oxford defending the Warren report also appeared in the free press. Prof. Trevor Roper s assessment in or. Sparrow s View was a travesty marred with Bias the free press presents prof. Trevor Roper s reply to _ or. Sparrow s accusations As it appeared in the sunday i oozy times. Although prof. Trevor Roper remains unconvinced by or. Sparrow s Sally he does admit one Wall was breached forcing him to eat Humble round 2 by the time or. Humes conducted his autopsy the Throat wound had been distorted by the tracheotomy at Parkland. He was thus unable to see its original form. He also had the advantage of the police evidence. That his autopsy was distorted by this evidence is shown by the document itself exhibit 397. It is not a purely medical document. It begins with a narrative of the assassination from the Book depository As reported by the police then describes the wounds in relation to it. On one Point i must eat Humble pie. In respect of the paper bag i regret that i made an error. I neglected the Cardinal Rule. Always Check your must pay the Price. I withdraw the statement completely yield to or. Sparrow the discoloured remnants of that paper bag on which i have publicly slipped up. Finally there is the to me astonishing fact that after warning him formally that his statements might be used in evidence against him the police claimed to have no record of Oswald s statements in the course of a 12-hour interrogation. I thought this so eccentric that i did not hesitate to suppose that the record must have been destroyed. Or. Sparrow prefers to accept the police explanation that the failure to make a record was exceptional that in the confusion of the time All principles of Good interrogation were forgotten. No notes but the police who made this excuse did not stick to it. On another occasion they told the commission that they never took notes so that their neglect of All principles of Good interrogation was not exceptional when the president of the United states was Mur dered but regular in All the 500 shootings whose victims Are brought yearly to the Parkland Hospital. So we can take our Choice. We have a free Choice because Here As elsewhere when interrogating the police the commis Sion did not press the Point. Defending counsel i think would have done so. This indeed is my Prin Cipal complaint against the commission. In the Chain of reasoning constructed by the police several essential links Are very weak there is the mystery of the original message which motivated patrolman Tippit indeed the whole Tippit episode. There is the mystery of Oswald s Marks Manship three rapid deadly shots from a Bolt action Rifle through an upper window. Qualified witnesses have deposed that the feat was impossible. If i could t do it declared a for Mer naval ordnance Man eight hours a Day doing this for living constantly on the Range i know this civilian could t do there is the mystery of the Rifle itself. Why did the experienced police officer who found it a graduate in engineering who admitted that he was familiar with rifles having been in the sporting goods business report not casually but in writing both to his superiors to the Fri that it was a Mauser 7.65 when a different make calibre were clearly inscribed on it All these problems May be soluble. But the commis Sion never pressed these weak links. It was Content with general even evasive answers which Slid Over their weakness. Above All there is the problem of motive. Why should a marxist who expressed admiration for or. Kennedy have Laid so deep a plot to kill him unable to find a rational explanation the commission has accepted a psychological explanation. But it has Only created a psychological mystery. If Oswald were an idealist or an exhibitionist we would have expected him on arrest to have boasted of his act of Justice claimed his full publicity. In fact he obstinately denied the fact. Such denial might be natural in a hired Assassin who reckoned on Protection. It is difficult to understand in a if there Are weaknesses within the testimony used there Are also problems about testimony that was unused or a pursued. Some known witnesses were not heard by the commission or at least if heard were heard in spite of not through the police. Such was Warren Rey nolds a witness of the Tippit affair who was mysteriously shot in the head two Days after being inter viewed by the police. He survived gave evidence but it was general Walker not the police who got him to do so the police sought to discount his evidence in Advance. Two other possible wit Nesses one known to Oswald the other to Ruby died violently before being Able to testify. Some Evi Dence Given to the police on the Day of the assassination was not pursued be cause it did not fit with what we knew to be of course much of the evidence which was not brought before the commis Sion is by definition hear say. For that reason i have been careful to cite none of it. But it need not have been ignored. The Pursuit of hearsay sometimes leads to the discovery of evidence. And even the evidence that did come before the com Mission was not fully digested by it. Note dotes How could it be we Only have to look at the dates. The commission began its work in february. On sept. 15 it was still taking Evi Dence. And yet the final report was handed to the president on sept. 24. And was on the Bookstall printed bound two Days later. Clearly its main conclusions had been reached its separate Chap ters composed before the last witnesses had been heard. Nevertheless from that mass of fascinating detail perhaps from other evidence conclusions will one Day be drawn. Whether those conclusions will be the same As those of the commission is in my Opin Ion an open question. Or. Sparrow would have me believe As the Only logical alternative to Swal lowing the report whole in a vast conspiracy involving police Fri All their witnesses.-1 do not accept such an alternative or such logic. It seems to me that whatever May have been established certain specific questions have been left unanswered. Not knowing How far we can Trust the police evidence we do not know How fully we have been informed. The solid pieces of evidence which have been arranged in one pattern May easily if that is defective have to be rearranged in another. Meanwhile precise conclusions Are necessarily Uncertain. We do not know precisely How the president was shot. We do not know whether Oswald had accomplices. We do not know the real motives or connections of Ruby. And these after All Are the essential questions. We Salute the Winnipeg fire fighters nine years ago members of the Winnipeg fee department recognized a need to help spread the spirit of Christmas to needy underprivileged children. At that moment the Winnipeg fire fighters toy re Newal project was born. Today it involves the voluntary services of Over 500 firemen on a year round basis the help of their wives at Christmas time. Toys have been received from As far As Calgary after renewal some have been sent As far As to the Dew line to Eskimo Metis children in other parts of the province. The toys Are also distributed by service clubs Church Community groups. At Christmas the fire fighters hold a huge party for the children. This year Over 1.000 youngsters were entertained Given refreshments gifts at the Winnipeg Arena we Are proud to Solute the fire fighters of Winnipeg for a Job Well done. Hats off to the firemen a sincere wish for cont med Success. The cm1ii6 breweries hmm whiter ;