(1)
Hugh
Aynesworth, JFK:
Breaking the News (2003)
Relying on pitifully
weak evidence to elevate a jack-leg Marxist such as Lee Harvey Oswald to membership
in the supposed international communist conspiracy was precisely the sort of irresponsible
straw man fabrication at which the News editorial writers excelled. No self-respecting
communist would have wanted himself or his movement associated with the likes
of Oswald.
Behind
the News' editorial's bluster, however, lurked a different truth. It wasn't political
conservatism, but intolerance-outright knee-jerk hostility to any opposing view-that
characterized the thought of Ted Dealey and his fellow believers on the right.
It was this brand of extremism that was discredited in Dallas by the events of
November 22nd.
Fear
for their own safety gripped some of the anti-communist crusaders after the shootings,
possibly for good reason. Larry Schmidt and Bernard Weissman left town, the dust
of The American Fact-Finding Committee settling to earth in their wake. General
Walker grabbed a plane for Shreveport, La., where he hunkered down for several
days.
(2)
Joachim
Joesten,
How Kennedy Was Killed (1968)
When Chief Justice Warren and other members of
the Commission on June 7, 1964,
interviewed Ruby at the Dallas County
jail. General Counsel Rankin told Ruby:
There was a story that you were sitting in your Carousel Club with Mr. (Bernard)
Weissman, Officer Tippit, and another man who has been called a rich oil man,
at one time shortly before the assassination. Can you tell us anything about that?'
To which Ruby replied with a counter-question: 'Who was the rich oil man?'
After that, unbelievably, the subject was dropped. Apparently, Messrs. Warren
and Rankin felt they were getting too warm. Ruby's reaction indicated that he
was ready to talk since he had nothing to lose. But the Commission members
weren't looking for the truth. They shied away from it, as from the plague. And
so the topic was quickly shifted. Ruby
never got a second chance to answer
'yes' or 'no' to the vitally important question of whether such a meeting was
held. Yet his surprise reaction, which so put off Messrs. Warren and Rankin that
they quickly changed the subject, indicates that the story of that meeting is
true...
Tippit,
I am satisfied, was up to his neck in the conspiracy to
kill President Kennedy. A Bircher, a marksman and a member
of the police force which almost openly connived at
the ambush in Dealey Plaza, he was most probably one of
the actual snipers - and was quickly silenced for that very reason.
And the description which Howard Brennan has given
of the Man in the Window makes it a near-certainty, in
my opinion, that Officer J. D. Tippit impersonated Lee Harvey
Oswald at the deadliest part of the frame-up.
(3)
Bernard Weissman was interviewed by Albert E. Jenner for the Warren
Commission (1964)
Albert
E. Jenner: Now, are you acquainted with a gentleman by the name of Larrie Schmidt?
Bernard Weissman:
Yes; I am.
Albert
E. Jenner: When did you first meet him?
Bernard
Weissman: In Munich, Germany, about July or August of 1962.
Albert E.
Jenner: Where does he reside?
Bernard
Weissman: Well, he was in Dallas. I understand he has dropped from sight. I don't
know where he is now.
Albert
E. Jenner: Was he residing in Dallas in the fall of 1963 when you were there?
Bernard Weissman:
Yes.
Albert
E. Jenner: When did you arrive in Dallas?
Bernard
Weissman: In Dallas, on the 4th of November 1963.
Albert
E. Jenner: And was Mr. Schmidt aware that you were about to come to Dallas?
Bernard
Weissman: Yes.
Albert
E. Jenner: And what was the purpose of your coming to Dallas?
Bernard
Weissman: I will be as brief as possible. It was simply to follow through on plans
that we had made in Germany, in order to develop a conservative organization in
Dallas, under our leadership.
Albert
E. Jenner: Did that conservative organization, or your purpose in going to Dallas,
as well, have any business context in addition to politics?
Bernard
Weissman: I would say 50 percent of the purpose was business and the other 50
percent politics. We figured that only rich men can indulge full time in politics,
so first we had to make some money before we could devote ourselves to the political
end completely...
Albert
E. Jenner: What contact did you have with Mr. Larrie Schmidt and Mr. Burley after
you left the Army, which eventually brought you to Dallas? State it in your own
words and chronologically, please.
Bernard
Weissman: Well, I got out of service on the 5th, and I spent the month of August
looking for a job. During this time, I had been in contact with Larrie. I had
telephoned him once during August. Things were pretty bad. I didn't have any money.
As far as I could ascertain he was broke himself. There wasn't any percentage
in going to Dallas and not accomplishing anything. As a matter of fact, I had
lost a good deal of confidence in Larrie in the year that he left Munich and was
in Dallas, and the letters I got from him - he seemed to have deviated from our
original plan. I wasn't too hot about going. He didn't seem to be accomplishing
anything, except where it benefited him.
Albert
E. Jenner: You say he deviated from the original plan. What was the original plan?
Bernard Weissman:
Well, the original plan was to stay away from various organizations and societies
that were, let's call them, radical, and had a reputation as being such.
Albert
E. Jenner: When you say radical, what do you mean?
Bernard
Weissman: I mean radical right. And I considered myself more of an idealist than
a politician. Larrie was more of a politician than an idealist. He went with the
wind - which is good for him, I guess, and bad for me. In any case Larrie wrote
me easily a dozen letters imploring me to come down, telling me in one that he
doesn't need me down there, but he would love to have my help because he can't
accomplish anything without me, and in the next one saying, "Forget it, I
don't need you," and so forth. As the letters came, they went with the wind,
depending on what he was doing personally. And along about the end of October,
I had been in contact with Bill - he was in Baltimore, Maryland, selling hearing
aids. He wasn't getting anywhere. He was making a living.
Albert
E. Jenner: Up to this point each of you was barely making a living?
Bernard
Weissman: Right.
Albert
E. Jenner: And you had no capital?
Bernard
Weissman: No.
Albert
E. Jenner: No funds of your own?
Bernard
Weissman: None at all.
(4)
Bernard Weissman was interviewed by was
interviewed by Albert E. Jenner for the Warren
Commission (1964)
Albert
E. Jenner: When did you first hear the name Lee Harvey Oswald?
Bernard
Weissman: We were sitting in a bar, right after President Kennedy's assassination.
Albert E.
Jenner: This was the 22d of November 1963?
Bernard
Weissman: Yes; it was Bill Burley, myself, and Larrie. We had made we were to
meet Larrie and Joe Grinnan at the Ducharme Club.
Albert
E. Jenner: For what meal?
Bernard
Weissman: For luncheon. We were supposed to meet him at 12:30 or 1 o'clock, I
forget which - about 1 o'clock. And I had a 12:30 on the button, as a matter of
fact - I had an appointment to sell a carpet out in the Garland section of Texas
- it was a 2:30 appointment. And I was in a hurry to get to meet Larrie and finish
the lunch, and whatever business they wanted to talk about I didn't know. So I
looked at my watch. I remember specifically it was 12:30, because at that time
Bill had been driving my car. He had quit the carpet company and was looking for
another job. He had looked at a franchise arrangement for insecticides. He picked
me up. He was waiting for me from 10 after 12 to 12:30. We got into the car. I
am a great news bug. So I turned the radio on, looking for a news station. And
they had - at that time, as I turned the radio on, the announcer said, "There
has been a rumor that President Kennedy has been shot." So we didn't believe
it. It was just a little too far out to believe.
And
after several minutes, it began to take on some substance about the President's
sedan speeding away, somebody hearing shots and people laying on the ground. In
other words, the way the reporters were covering it. I don't recall exactly what
they said. And, at this time - we were going to go to the Ducharme Club through
downtown Dallas. We were heading for the area about two blocks adjacent to the
Houston Street viaduct. And then we heard about the police pulling all sorts of
people somebody said they saw somebody and gave a description. And the police
were pulling people off the street and so forth. So Bill and I didn't want to
get involved in this. So we took a roundabout route. We got lost for a while.
Anyway, we finally wound up at the other side of Dallas, and we were at the Ducharme
Club.
Albert
E. Jenner: When you arrived there, was Mr. Schmidt there?
Bernard
Weissman: He was waiting for me. But Joe Grinnan wasn't there. He had heard this
thing and took off. I guess he wanted to hide or something.
Albert
E. Jenner: Why?
Albert
E. Jenner: Well, because the way it was right away, the announcers, even before
it was ascertained that President Kennedy was dead, or that he had really been
shot, that it was a right-wing plot and so forth. And he had every reason to be
frightened.
Albert
E. Jenner: Why did he have every reason to be frightened?
Bernard
Weissman: Because, let's face it, the public feeling would suddenly be very anti-rightwing,
and no telling what would happen if a mob got together and discovered him. They
would tear him apart. Bill and I were frightened to the point because I knew about
the ad. And I knew exactly what - at least I felt in my own mind I knew what people
would believe. They would read the ad and so forth, and associate you with this
thing, somehow, one way or another. So we went to another bar - I don't remember
the name of it - the Ducharme Club was closed, by the way, that afternoon.
Albert
E. Jenner: When you reached the Ducharme Club, it was closed, but you found Mr.
Schmidt there?
Bernard
Weissman: Larrie was waiting on the corner. He got in the car. We sat and talked
for a few minutes. We went to another bar a few blocks away. We drank beer and
watched television. And we had been in the bar, I guess, about an hour when it
come over that this patrolman Tippit had been shot, and they trapped some guy
in a movie theater. And maybe half an our, an hour later, it came out this fellow's
name was Lee Harvey Oswald. This is the first time I ever heard the name.
Albert
E. Jenner: What was said at that time?
Bernard
Weissman: By us?
Albert
E. Jenner: Yes. When it was announced it was Lee Harvey Oswald.
Bernard
Weissman: We were relieved.
Albert
E. Jenner: Anything said about it?
Bernard
Weissman: I don't recall. First, what was said, like, I hope he is not a member
of the Walker group - something like that - I hope he is not one of Walker's boys.
Because it is like a clique, and it is guilt by association from thereafter. So
it came over later this guy was a Marxist. This was the same afternoon, I believe.
It was found out this fellow was a Marxist. And then the announcers - they left
the right-wing for a little while, and started going to the left, and I breathed
a sigh of relief. After 4 hours in the bar, Bill and I went back to the apartment,
and Larrie went to the Ducharme Club. He was afraid to go home.
(5)
Lee Israel, Kilgallen (1979)
Under the headline
NEW DOROTHY KILGALLEN EXCLUSIVE - TALE OF "RICH OIL MAN" AT RUBY CLUB
- Dorothy printed Mark's secret testimony. But his testimony implicated a
trio at the Carousel: Ruby, Tippit, and Weissman.
Reexamining the transcript
of Ruby's testimony before the commission, she noticed that the questions posed
to him concerned not a trio, but a quartet. Earl Warren, in his questioning, informed
Ruby that Lane had said: "In your Carousel Club you and Weisman (sic) and
Tippit... and a rich oil man had an interview or conversation for an hour or two."
Dorothy, who did not have access yet to the complete Warren Report, had to deduce:
"The mention of the "rich oil man" by Chief Justice Warren would
indicate then, that the Commission was informed of the meeting by a source other
than Mr. Lane, and that this second source provided the name of a fourth party
- the oil man. If that is not the case, if the Commission had only Mr. Lane's
testimony to go on, it would appear that the oil man was "invented"
by the investigators. And it is difficult to imagine the Commission doing any
such thing.
The introduction of the rich oil man into the questioning effectively discombobulated
the already-confused Jack Ruby.
When the report was released, it was clear that no testimony was given by any
of the 552 witnesses about a rich oil man. Either there was a significant omission
in the report of the Warren Commission, or the oil man was part of the unofficial
corpus of information to which Warren was privy, or Dorothy's thesis - however
"difficult to imagine" - was correct.
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