Ian Griggs was born at
Hornchurch, Essex, in 1939. Griggs was a Ministry of Defence Police
Officer (1971 to 1994). He has been involved in researching the assassination
of John
F. Kennedy since
1966. He has visited Dallas on twelve occasions and has travelled
extensively throughout the United States in order to study the case.
He has met and liaised with numerous eyewitnesses to the assassination,
fellow researchers, journalists, police officers, authors, etc. in
the USA, Canada and Europe.
In 1993 Ian Griggs appeared
on BBC-TV Breakfast Time. He was
also a guest on the live San Francisco
cable TV show Assassination Update
and at other times on various US television and radio stations. In
1994 Ian Griggs was a member of the International Perspectives panel
at the Assassination Symposium on John F. Kennedy (ASK) held in Dallas,
Texas.
Ian Griggs presented major
research papers to the COPA Conference in Washington DC in October
1995, to the First Conference of The Fourth Decade in Fredonia, NY
in July 1996 and to five November in Dallas conferences of JFK-Lancer
in Dallas (1996-2000).
In 1998
he received the JFK-Lancer New Frontier Award "in appreciation
of your contribution of new evidence and furthering the study of the
assassination of President John F. Kennedy."
Ian Griggs has had five
major articles published in leading US journal The
Fourth Decade and is a regular contributor to the quarterly
US research journal The Assassination Chronicles.
He has contributed research articles to US journal JFK/Deep
Politics Quarterly and to British journals Dallas
'63 and The Dealey Plaza Echo.
He has also contributed research articles to internet journals Fair
Play Magazine,
JFK: The Voice of Reason (UK)
and JFK Link (Australia). His
comprehensive research manuscript on the assassination, Kennedy
Assassinated! - Oswald Murdered! was published in Dallas
in November 1994. It deals with the manner in which the British media
handled the news of the two killings in November 1963.
Ian Griggs conducted audio
and video-recorded interviews of several witnesses including Shari
Angel, Beverly Oliver, Bobby Hargis, Johnny Calvin Brewer and Bill
Newman. Transcripts of the Newman interview was included in the 1998
book November Patriots by Constance
Kritzberg and Larry Hancock. He has also
conducted UK-based research on behalf of US author/researcher David
Lifton.
His article The President, the Press and
the Patsy was included in the Commentary and Theory section
of Specter of Treason by J.E.
Ballantyne, Jr. in 1997.
Ian Griggs was advisor
to the BBC Radio 5 Conspiracy Theories
programme (20th September 1998). He was also advisor to Principal
Films (UK) on the Dealey Plaza segment of their It
Happened Here TV series, that was shown in 2002.
A collection of articles on the assassination of John F. Kennedy, No Case to Answer, was published in November, 2005.
Dealey Plaza
UK
Open
Debate on the Kennedy Assassination
Ian Griggs: No Case to Answer
Forum Debate on No Case to Answer
(1)
Ian Griggs, Fair
Play Magazine, The
Paper Bag that Never Was (March, 1997)
One of the
most questionable of all Warren Commission exhibits has to be CE 1302.
This is the photograph which purports to show "Approximate location
of wrapping-paper bag ... near window in southeast corner." The
index to Volume 22 of the Warren Commission's 26 Volumes of Hearings
and Exhibits, in which this appears on page 479, describes this exhibit
as "Photograph of southeast corner of sixth floor of Texas School
Book Depository Building, showing approximate location of wrapping-paper
bag and location of palmprint on carton."
From those positive and
uncomplicated descriptions, we would expect to see a photograph showing
a bag made out of wrapping-paper. In reality, the photograph shows
no paper bag - just a dotted-line rectangle which has been printed
on the photograph and which bears the legend: "Approximate location
of wrapping-paper bag."
In accordance with normal
police practice, other items of potential evidential value were photographed
where they lay - for example the rifle, the spent cartridges and the
book carton with the palm print on it. Why, then, was the paper bag
not afforded this attention? May I be as bold as to suggest that this
most vital piece of 'evidence' did not actually exist at the time?
It is my earnest belief that it was made up (in both senses) some
time later.
(2)
Ian Griggs, Fair
Play Magazine, Did
Howard Leslie Brennan Really Attend an Identification Lineup?
(May, 1999)
The first
lineup was convened less than three and a half hours after the murder
of Patrolman J D Tippit. Its purpose was to give 47-year old Dallas
waitress Mrs Helen Louise Markham the opportunity to pick out the
man she claimed to have seen shoot the officer. I will point out here
that there are problems establishing the exact times of all these
lineups. In each case, I will use the time given in the official DPD
investigation file 15. According to that document, this lineup was
held at 4.35pm.
As on all
three lineups on Friday 22nd, Oswald selected the no. 2 position in
the four-man lineup and was handcuffed to the man on either side of
him. His companions were Acting Detective Perry (no.1), Detective
Clark (no. 3) and Jail Clerk Don Ables (no.4).
When Mrs Markham had been
brought in and was in position on the other side of the one-way nylon
screen, each man was asked to step forward and state his name and
place of employment. Perhaps significantly, only Oswald was truthful
here. The three DPD employees (by their own admission in their later
sworn testimony), each gave fictitious answers. Oswald was the only
one of the four with facial injuries; he had been named and shown
on TV that afternoon and it had also been broadcast that his place
of employment was believed to be the source of the attack on Kennedy.
In view of those facts, it cannot be claimed that everything was being
arranged with scrupulous fairness to the suspect!
As for the witness, she
was hardly in a fit state to undertake the responsible task of identifying
(or not identifying, as the case may be) the killer of Patrolman Tippit.
Homicide Detective L. C. Graves, one of those organising the lineup,
said that she was "quite hysterical" and "crying and
upset" and there was even talk of her being sent to hospital.
In his testimony, Captain Fritz stated: "We were trying to get
that showup as soon as we could because she was beginning to faint
and getting sick. In fact I had to leave the office and carry some
ammonia across the hall, they were about to send her to the hospital
or something and we needed that identification real quickly, and she
got to feeling all right after using this ammonia."
According to the Warren
Report, Mrs Markham "identified Lee Harvey Oswald as the man
who shot the policeman" 18. The Report also stated that "in
testimony before the Commission, Mrs Markham confirmed her positive
identification of Lee Harvey Oswald as the man she saw kill Officer
Tippit".
Sylvia Meagher, in Accessories
After the Fact, argued that the testimony of this alleged eyewitness
to the shooting of Tippit by Oswald, lacks any semblance of credibility
20. Several members of the Warren Commission staff have subsequently
voiced their opinions of Mrs Markham's value as a witness. Assistant
Counsel Liebeler has described her testimony as "contradictory
and worthless" 21, whilst Assistant Counsel Ball described her
as "an utter screwball".
Norman Redlich, another
Warren Commission staff member, is quoted as saying "The Commission
wants to believe Mrs Markham and that's all there is to it."
23. I think this remark is very important since Mrs Markham was the
only witness who ever claimed to have actually seen Tippit being shot.
Like it or not, the investigators were stuck with her! If she had
announced that the Earth was flat, they would have been hard-pressed
not to believe her!
What the Warren Report
does not divulge about the testimony of its star Tippit witness is
the fact that she required considerable prompting concerning her identification
of Oswald. In her testimony, she initially stated six times that she
recognised nobody in the lineup. Tiring of this, Assistant Counsel
Ball unashamedly produced one of the most amazing leading questions
ever asked: "Was there a number two man in there?" After
a few similar questions, he managed to get her to say "I asked...
I looked at him. When I saw this man I wasn't sure but I had cold
chills run all over me ... when I saw the man. But I wasn't sure."
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