INVESTIGATION OF THE ASSINATION OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY SELECT U.S. HEARINGS BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON ASSASSINATIONS OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES NINETY-FIFTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION SEPTEMBER 12, 13, 14, AND 15, 1978 VOLUME 2 Printed for the use of the Select Committee on Assassinations U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 41-371 0 WASHINGTON:1979 For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office Washington, D.C. 20402 SELECT COMMITTEE ON ASSASSINATIONS LOUIS STOKES, Ohio, Chairman RICHARDSON PREYER, North Carolina SAMUEL DEVINE, Ohio WALTER E. FAUNTROY, STEWART B. McKINNEY, Connecticut District of Columbia CHARLES THONE, Nebraska YVONNE BRATHWAITE BURKE. HAROLD S. SAWYER, Michigan California CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connectticut HAROLD F. FORD, Tennessee FLOYD J. FITHIAN, Indiana ROBERT W. EDGAR, Pennsylvania Subcommitte on the Subcommittee on the Assassination of Assassination of Martin Luther King John F. Kennedy WALTER E. FAUNTROY, Chairman RICHARDSON PREYER, Chairman HAROLD E. FORD YVONNE BRATHWAITE BURKE FLOYD J. FITHIAN CHRISTOPHER J. DODD ROBERT W. EDGAR CHARLES THONE STEWART B. McKINNEY HAROLD S. SAWYER LOUIS STOKES, ex officio LOUIS STOKES, ex officio SAMUEL DEVINE, ex officio SAMUEL DEVINE, ex officio (II) CONTENTS September 11, 1978: Page Narration by G. Robert Blakey, chief counsel and staff director 2 Testimony of William Hartmann................................ 4 Statement of G. Robert Blakey, chief counsel ............... 16 Testimony of James E. Barger................................. 17 AFTERNOON SESSION Testimony of James E. Barger--[Resumed]......................... 70 Testimony of Paul McCaghren .................................... 107 Testimony of David Green, professor, Harvard University......... 111 September 12, 1978: Narration by G. Robert Blakey, chief counsel................. 139 Testimony of Calvin McCamy................................... 142 Testimony of Thomas Canning.................................. 154 September 13, 1978: Narration by G. Robert Blakey, chief counsel................. 205 Testimony of Marina Oswald Porter............................ 206 AFTERNOON SESSION Testimony of Marina Oswald Porter--[Resumed]..................... 256 September 14,1978: Testimony of Marina Oswald Porter--[Resumed].................. 285 Narration by G. Robert Blakey, chief counsel.................. 319 Testimony of Jack D. White.................................... 322 AFTERNOON SESSION Testimony of Jack D. White--[Resumed]............................ 345 Testimony of Calvin S. McCamy and Sgt. Cecil W. Kirk............. 349 Testimony of Joseph P. McNally................................... 372 September 15,1978: Testimony of Calvin S. McCamy and Sgt. Cecil W. Kirk--[Resumed] 397 Narration by G. Robert Blakey, chief counsel.................. 436 Testimony of John Hart........................................ 487 AFTERNOON SESSION Testimony of John Hart--[Resumed]................................ 505 INVESTIGATION OF THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 1978 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SELECT COMMITTEE ON ASSASSINATIONS, Washington, D.C., The select committee met, pursuant to adjournment at 9:10 a.m., in room 345, Cannon House Office Building, Hon. Louis Stokes (chairman of the select committee) presiding. Present: Representatives Stokes, Devine, Preyer, McKinney, Sawyer, Dodd, Ford, Fithian, and Edgar. Staff present: G. Robert Blakey, chief counsel and staff director; Elizabeth L. Berning, chief clerk; Leodis Matthews, staff counsel; and Gary Cornwell, deputy chief counsel. Chairman STOKES. A quorum being present, the committee will come to order. At the outset of this morning's hearings I would like to make some brief remarks. This morning, the Select Committee on Assassinations begins its second week of public hearings into the death of President John F. Kennedy. The evidence to be heard today will be directed toward the number, direction and timing of the shots fired at President Kennedy in Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963. Much of the evidence heard last week by the committee tended to support the basic conclusions of the Warren Commission, which concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone assassin of the President. The evidence to be heard today will be troubling to somepersons. I would caution against those who would too quickly draw sensational conclusions from this evidence. Mr. Justice Holmes used to say that the first requirement of a good theory was that it fit the facts. Since all of the evidence in the Kennedy investigation is not in, it is not yet possible to fit any theory to the facts. A final resolution of the questions that may be raised by today's evidence must, therefore, await the conclusion of our hearings and the submission of our final report in December. Mrs. BENSON. Mr. Chairman, my name is Mildred Benson. I am from Pittsburgh. The Kennedy assassination-- Chairman STOKES. Madam, you are disturbing a congressional hearing and that will not be tolerated. Madam, I will have to ask you to leave the hearings. (1) 2 Mrs. BENSON. These were political conspiracies. My family and I have been subjected to a savage program---- Chairman STOKES. Will the Capitol Police see that this lady is removed from the hearings? Mrs. BENSON. John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy were killed by political conspiracy. Chairman STOKES. The Chair recognizes Professor Blakey. NARRATION BY G. ROBERT BLAKEY, CHIEF COUNSEL Mr. BLAKEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Three days of testimony before the committee-- both firsthand and expert in character--have indicated that a number of crucial issues in the Kennedy assassination turn on questions relating to the shots fired by the assassin or assassins. How many were fired? What was the time span between them? From which direction from which they were fired. Put succinctly: resolving the question of the number of those who participated in the assassination itself--a lone assassin or more that one gunman, that is a conspiracy--may well hinge on the number of shots fired, the time interval between them , and the direction from which they were fired. As we have seen, the Warren Commission was persuaded that there were at least two shots--more probably three--and they all came from the Texas School Book Depository, which was to the right rear of the Presidential limousine. The Commission found the discovery of three spent cartridge cases on the floor of the sixth story of the book depository, its most persuasive evidence on the question of the number of shots, even though the medical and ballistics evidence could account for only two shots. Based on expert FBI testimony that the minimum time required to fire the rifle ranged from 2.25 to 2.3 seconds and an analysis of the Zapruder film, it also concluded that the time from the first to the last shot most probably ranged from 7.1 to 7.9 seconds. The best way, of course, to determine the number of shots is to listen to them--either when they occur or subsequently--on a sound recording, if one were to exist. The Warren Commission was alerted to the possibility of such a recording, one that was made by Dallas radio station KBOX and later used as part of a phonograph record produced by Colpix, Inc., "Four Days that Shocked the World," A private citizen who had bought the record informed the commission on January 8, 1964 about the program and suggested that sounds of shots could be detected in an on-the-scene account of the assassination by Dallas reporter Sam Pate. The Commission obtained the recording from KBOX, and on June 29 Assistant Counsel Arlen Specter wrote a memo to General Counsel J. Lee Rankin in which he noted, "Several members of the staff listened to the tape and heard two noises which sound like gunshots..." On June 30, the commission sent the tape to Dr. Lawrence Kersta of Bell Telephone Laboratories, Murry Hill, N. J. Dr. Kersta's analyses of the tape, however, apparently inclusive. I say " apparently," because attempts by this committee to find reports of Dr. Kersta's work have been to date unsuccessful. 3 Another way to try and pin down the number, time sequence and direction of the shots is to take testimony from on-the-scene witnesses. The Warren Commission conducted--or had conducted for it--exhaustive interviews of this character. The recollections of the witnesses, however, were far from consistent. On the number of shots, the range was two to six, although three was seemingly the consensus. The time sequence ranged from 5 to 6 seconds. On their origin, reactions were also mixed. Many witnesses thought they came from the general direction of the book depository, but a significant number of others put the firing point at a piece of elevated landscape to the front and right of the limousine that has come to be known as the "grassy knoll." Many witnesses frankly confessed confusion. For example, Abraham Zapruder, who stood on a concrete abutment in front of the grassy knoll and took his widely viewed movie of the assassination, said that he thought it came "from back of me,"but that there was "too much reverberation" to tell for sure. In any event, it seems clear that any serious effort to explain or understand what happened in Dealey Plaza must take into account all of the first hand evidence on number, time and direction--even when it is apparently in conflict. On the other hand, some of the testimony relating to the direction of the shots was based on more than are action to the bark of a rifle. Howard L. Brennan, for example, said he actually "saw a man fire one shot" from the depository. James Jarman, who was on the fifth floor of the depository, also said he heard the sound of a bolt action of a rifle and the cartridge cases dropping to the floor above him. Nevertheless, many critics have alleged that the Commission, in the ultimate analysis, forced the evidence on the question of number and direction into a mold consistent with the discovery of the three cartridge cases on the sixth floor of the book depository. Mark Lane, for example argues that this was how the single bullet theory came into being. In his "Rush to Judgment" Lane writes the Commission "... salvaged its basic working hypothesis (the lone assassin theory) by concluding that the bullet that struck Governor Connally first struck the President." Josiah Thompson, in his "Six Seconds in Dallas" did a statistical analysis of the statements of the witnesses to the shots. His findings support the commission on the number of shots but disputeit on the direction from which they came: 84.4 percent of them heard three shots, Thompson found, but of those who had an opinion as to direction, 52 percent thought they came from the grassy knoll, 39 percent from the direction of the depository. Inevitably, of course, the select committee has had to attempt to unravel these conflicting views. Fortunately, it has had the aid of modern technology. New scientific methods have been applied to old evidence in some cases; in other cases, it has analyzed important pieces of new evidence that had previously been over looked. For one example, the committee devised new tests for the Zapruder film, an original piece of evidence. For another, the committee asked a consultant to perform advanced computer studies with new 4 evidence, a sound recording of the assassination itself that has been only recently turned up. The photographic experiments were conducted by the committee's photographic panel of experts. They involved attempts to analyze camera "jiggle" in an effort to record what may well have been the startled reactions to gunshot. The thought was that Zapruder may have reflexively moved his camera when he heard each shot. By measuring the intensities of blurs on a given frame, it was hoped that the timing of the shots could be indirectly pinpointed. Dr. William Hartmann was in charge of what has come to be known on the staff as the jiggle analysis. Dr. Hartmann received a Ph.D. degree in astronomy from the University of Arizona in 1966. He has been assistant professor at the University Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, associate and senior scientist at the IIT Research Institute and currently is the senior scientist at the Planety and is the co-winner of the 1965-66 Ninniger Meterorite Award. He has written numerous professional articles and has served as an associate editor of the Journal of Geophysical Research. He has authored a planetary text book and coauthored a book on the planet Mars. Dr. Hartmann served as photo analyst for the U.. Air Force/University of Colorado study of UFO,s and served as photo analyst and coninvestigator on Mariner 9 mission to photograph Mars. It would be appropriate at this time to, Mr. Chairman to call Dr, Hartmann. Chairman STOKES. The committee calls Dr. Hartmann. Sir, will you raise your right hand to be sworn? Do you solemnly swear that the testimony you will give before this committee is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God? Dr. HARTMANN. I do. Chairman STOKES. Thank you. Dr. Hartmann, as a member of the photopanel, did you conduct photographic analysis in order to determine if there was any mea- surable reaction on the part of photographers who were taking pictures in Dealey Plaza at the of the assassination which might be associated with the sound of gunfire? TESTIMONY OF WILLIAM HARTMANN Dr. HARTMANN. Yes. Mr. CORNWELL. What theoretical reason or justification would there be for conducting that type of analysis? Dr. HARTMANN. I think there are several possible justifications for it that add together. First, psychological experiments have shown that there is a rather universal startle reaction, and interestingly enough, the 5 classic work on this published in 1939 used gunshots before unsuspecting witnesses as the source of the stimulus to cause the startle reaction. Second, using a motion picture camera such, as Mr. Zapruder's camera and his film, is an ideal test for startle reaction, because the photographer is attempting to hold this camera still or pan very smoothly, so that any startle reaction would cause a disturbance of that smooth panning motion. Third, then there would be a question, was the stimulus, the gunfire in Dealey Plaza, loud enough to cause such a startle reaction. I was present on August 20 when the committee did some test firing with the rifle similar to the one beleived to have been used, and I found, first of all, that this was a very loud noise, louder than I had suspected, and in fact I attempted to take some pictures simultaneously with the gunfire and found that in three out of three cases my pictures were blurred when they were taken with gunfire and not when they were taken at other times. In fact I think my pictures were probably more blurred, showed a larger startled reaction than Mr. Zapruder's. Finally, it is a reasonable investigation to under take because we know that there are some episodes of blur in the Zapruder film as you watch it. Mr. CORNWELL. When did you first undertake this analysis? Dr. HARTMANN. It was proposed in February, but we did not undertake it until July when it began to be apparent to the committee that there might be data from the acoustic analysis with which we could compare it, so that we would have some independent information to compare with. Mr. CORNWELL. Who did you work with in the analysis? Dr. HARTMANN. Frank Scott, who is a photo scientist with Perkin Elmer, and Elmer was also a member of the photo panel, and he did an independent set of measurements on the same film. Mr. CORNWELL. Did the procedures which were selected, were they followed both by you and Mr. Scott, the same procedures? Dr. HARTMANN. No. We used separate procedures. We both made a series of measurements on the film, but each decided for himself what system might be best to record in a quantitative way these blurs or jiggles. Mr. CORNWELL Just very briefly, would you tell us what the differences were between the two approaches that you took? Dr. HARTMANN. Briefly, I measured the amount of blur or smearing of the image in each frame of the film, one frame at a time, and what Mr. Scott did was to follow from one frame to the next the position of the camera, where it was pointed in the landscape, and to see how smooth that tracking was between one frame and the next frame. Mr. CORNWELL. So then would it be accurate to state that you measured the blur internally within the frame and Mr. Scott measured the blur which occurred between two frames? Dr. HARTMANN. Yes, in a real sense mine is a measure of the blur while the shutter was open, and Mr. Scott's is a measure of the blur that occurred from the middle of the time the shutter was open on one frame to the time it was open on the next frame. 6 Mr. CORNWELL. I would like to show you exhibits F-224, 225, 226, and 227, which I believe have been previously admitted in this case. The photographs correspond to frames 188 to 191 of the Zapruder film. I ask you if you would use those exhibits to illustrate first the technique which you applied. [The information follows:] JFK EXHIBIT F-224 7 JFK EXHIBIT F-225 JFK EXHIBIT F-226 8 JFK EXHIBIT F-227 Dr. HARTMANN. Yes. May I go over to the board? Now these are frames 188 through 191 in order and it is a good example of what can be done. These are enlargements of part of the frame, but here you see a reasonably sharp frame, a rather typical frame, and there are some highlights on the car which appear as circular or slightly elliptical bright spots. So these are the smallest things that you can resolve, the Smallest spots that you can see in the picture. On this frame, you may be able to see that the spots are now elongated a little bit in this direction, meaning that while the shutter was open, the camera moved a little bit in that direction. Now the camera is moving considerably more violently during the exposure, and we have an elongation in this direction, and here, finally, frame 191, which is quite seriously blurred and is in fact one of the more blurred frames in the sequence. So the length of these spots can be measured from frame to frame, and that gives a measurement of what we call the blur or the jiggle- Mr. CORNWELL. it would be possible then, I take it, to quantify the amount of blur or jiggle in the frame. Dr. HARTMANN. Yes, by direct measurement of the length of this blurred spot, and that, in essence, is a measurement of the error in the photographer's accuracy in panning on the Presidential car that went by. Mr. CORNWELL. I would like to show you JFK exhibit F-175 and ask you if you can identify that. 9 Dr. HARTMANN. Yes. This is a plot of the amount of blur that we measured by the technique I used on each frame. Mr. CORNWELL Mr. Chairman, at this time I would request that that exhibit be admitted into evidence. Chairman STOKES. Without objection, it maybe entered into the record at this point. [The information follows:] JFK EXHIBIT F-175 Mr. CORNWELL. Would you explain, Dr. Hartmann, what that exhibit illustrates or what it shows? Dr. HARTMANN. Yes; I tried to plot the amount of blur. So the amount of blur is plotted in this vertical direction and it is expressed here in terms of the percent of the width of the field so that a blur right along here of this magnitude is about 1 percent of the width of the field. Up here it is about 6 percent of the width of the field. These are the frame numbers. This is a running count of the time in seconds. I chose to use zero at about frames 310 to 311 because that would be the moment in essence when the man pulled the trigger on the gun. The bullet is seen to strike the head in 313, or the head is seen to explode at that time, so zero can be considered one known gun shot time. Now each dot is a frame. And if you asked for a threshold and said are there any blurs greater than 6 percent, let's say, well, there would be none. And if you start to lower your threshold, coming down to about 4 percent, we start to pick up a blur. This one is frame 330, and as we come on down, we pick up more blurs. Well, of course, if you go too low, you are getting into basically noise, just the ordinary jiggle, and we don't want to clutter up our analysis with looking at the ordinary jiggle. So I arbitrarily chose a threshold, and to make it a little bit clearer drew a line here, and any jiggles or blurs or errors in panning that stick up above that line then are outlined with solid lines to make them clearer. So there are some patterns, or clusters of jiggles, which may be response to some sort of stimulus. Mr. CORNWELL. I would like to ask you, if you could use the blackboard now which is behind you, and illustrate for us, if you would, Mr. Scott's analysis. Dr. HARTMANN. Yes; he reasoned as follows: Suppose the car is coming by and the photographer is following the car precisely. He would be aiming his camera at the middle of each exposure as the 10 shutter opens and closes and opens and closes at a series of points which would be arranged in a nice smooth line and relatively equally spaced. Now if any stimulus or any cause made him jiggle the camera or jerk the camera, we would have this pattern of regular pointing spots going on, and then perhaps, let's say, the camera moves in a downward direction. And so in the first case, we would have a line of points like that, but in the second case, a line like this, and this would betray an irregularity in the panning on the Presidential car. Mr. CORNWELL. I would like to show you now JFK exhibits F-371, 372, and 373, and ask you if you would tell us what those are. Dr HARTMANN. I might just comment also, as that is being set up, that a way to express this measurement quantitatively and in a similar fashion to the other diagram would be to say that at this particular frame the photographer should move, in the next frame, he should move to this position, but, in fact, we discover that he has moved down here, so that this distance is a measure of the error. So it is possible to convert these into a set of quantitative measurements of the error. This is essentially a method known as just vector subtraction between these two frames. Yes, and these are, first, an explanation of his method and enlargement of one sequence of frames in the fashion that he measured them and his entire sequence of measurements. Mr. CORNWELL So referring to JFK exhibit F-373, that is the entire sequence of the frames in the Zapruder film beginning at what point and ending at what other point. Dr. HARTMANN. Yes; these run from in the 130's, when the Presidential motorcade comes around the corner, all the way to the 390's, as it disappears. Mr. CORNWELL And, would it be accurate to state that, JFK exhibit F-372 is simply a blow up of one portion of 373? Dr. HARTMANN. Yes, it is; it is the first portion. Mr. CORNWELL May we have these three exhibits admitted into evidence, Mr. Chairman? Chairman STOKES. Without objection, they may be entered into the record. [The information follows:] 11 JFK EXIBIT F-371 JFK EXIBIT F-372 12 JFK EXHIBIT F-373 Mr. CORNWELL Dr. Hartmann, referring to the center JFK exhibit F-372, would it be accurate to state that the blowup there illustrates that at some points in the film Mr. Zapruder in fact doubled back instead of going forward with his panning as you would expect? Dr. HARTMANN. Yes. There is a slight doubling back, and I would just caution that there are different types of panning errors. In other words, there is this type that I sketched here. There is the type where you actually double back, but there is the type where you are going along in a straight smooth direction and suddenly move a great distance in this direction, all right, just to the right in the same direction, but by more than you should have, so that that produces a line, a straight line, still, and yet there is a very large error here. So don't be fooled into thinking that the only reactions or jiggles are the places where the line gets tangled. There may be some reactions in places where the line is spaced out by more than the usual amount. Mr. CORNWELL As the exhibits were being put up, you stated that you could quantify the results of the technique applied by Mr. Scott, the same as the technique that you had applied. I would like at this time to show you JFK exhibit F-176, and ask you if you can identify that. Dr. HARTMANN. Yes, sir. This is the same type of plot that was done with the set of measurements I made. The set of frame numbers are along the bottom and the amount of jiggle or blur plotted for each frame. Mr. CORNWELL In this case it relates to the Scott technique? Dr. HARTMANN. Correct. 13 Mr. CORNWELL We would ask at this time that that exhibit be placed into evidence, Mr. Chairman. Chairman STOKES. Without objection it maybe entered into the record. [The information follows:] JFK EXHIBIT F-176 Mr. CORNWELL. Now, in addition to the two approaches you have described, are you aware of any other way in which jiggle might be measured? Dr. HARTMANN. Yes. The physicist, Luis Alvarez, has in 1976 published in the American Journal of Physics an analysis of the same film using a third method, and that method was basically to take the set of blurs similar to what I described first, what I was quoting in my method, and his reasoning is as follows: That if the blur, if the amount of blur stays the same from one frame to the next to the next, then essentially nothing is happening. But if there is a sudden change in the amount of blur, then that is a sensitive measurement of a disturbance. And so what he plotted was the difference in blur from one frame to the next. So that is a third set of measurements. Mr. CORNWELL. When did you first become aware of Dr. Alvarez---- Mr. CORNWELL. I would like at this time to show you exhibit 177 and ask you if you can identify that. Dr. HARTMANN. Yes, sir. This is an analysis or a plot showing all three sets of information on the same time scale now. So, for the first time we have a chance to really compare what the three independent and different types of measurements show, the same boxes here with the same set of frame numbers and the same timings, and, incidentally, I have noted some events as they happen along the sequence in the film, just to give you a reference to what is happening in the motorcade. Now above the little line are the peaks, the greatest blurs that were measured by my technique, this is taken directly off that earlier graph. Below the line is just a flipped over image of the blurs or jiggles measured by Mr. Scott's technique, and I think you 14 find some pretty good agreement there. And then down at the bottom in red has been added directly, hand-copied from Alvarez's graph published in his paper, the set of measurements that he made, and, incidentally, they jiggle in both directions because he kept track of either what he called a positive blur in one direction or a negative in the other direction, so his are a kind of a squiggle, and ours are just motions up or down- Mr. CORNWELL. I would like at this time, Mr. Chairman, to ask that JFK exhibit F-177 be admitted into evidence. Chairman STOKES. Without objection, it may be entered into evidence at this point. [The information follows:] JFK EXHIBIT-177 Mr. CORNWELL. Dr. Hartmann, can you tell us, from the analysis that you just described, precisely when the shots were fired? Dr. HARTMANN. Well, in mu opinion, if you look only at this record of blur, in spite of the fact that there is pretty good agreement, it would be very difficult to say that a particular episode of jiggling here, a particular set of blurs, is there response to a gunshot The question is, we believe, that if there was a loud gunshot, there probably was a startle reaction. But there could have been other kinds of reactions that would cause jiggles, just false alarms. And so on the basis of looking just at the blur, I would say no. However, if we then look at the photo visual evidence of what is happening in the parade, I think we can begin to identify some of these as gunshots. Mr. CORNWELL. Would you explain that if you could in relation to frame 313---- Dr. HARTMANN. Yes. Mr. CORNWELL. [continuing]. Where the gunshot occurred? Dr. HARTMANN. That, in particular, is perhaps the most significant one, where we know that there has been a gunshot. And we see that there is a very strong episode of this jiggling initiated at that time. The lapse time the jiggles begin--of course one has to define how do you detect when the jiggle really begins? 15 And perhaps the best way is to go, is to look at the frame group from when the jiggle initiates to when it reaches a maximum. In this case that is about 313 to 319. The shot was probably fired at 310, as I mentioned before, and that number of frames is consistent with the measures of startle reaction time that were reported in the book that I mentioned. So I think that is a good confirmation that we are really seeing here the reaction to both the sound of the gunshot and probably the visual sight of what happened on that shot. Mr. CORNWELL And would it be accurate to state that the second largest area of blur or jiggle, apart from the one which occurred shortly after the head shot, would be in the earlier portion of the film? Dr. HARTMANN. That is correct. Mr. CORNWELL. What frame is that associated with? Dr. HARTMANN. About frames 190 to 200 there is a strong blur reaction initiated. So having concluded that this is in fact, that the blur sequence around 313 to 319 is in fact a response to the gunshots, I would think that the logical inference would be that the blur sequence, the blur episode, running typically from 190 to 200 is also a response to a possible gunshot. And we know that the President emerged from behind the sign somewhat later, some frames later, showing in fact a reaction to such a wound. So this could very well be the blur or startle reaction to the gunshot that caused the back wound to the President. Mr. CORNWELL. And what, if any, corroboration is provided by this analysis to the Warren Commission's conclusion that the President and the Governor may have been shot in the vicinity of frame 210. Dr. HARTMANN. Yes, they picked 210. I would say that to pick 210 in the face of this current evidence, to pick 210 as the time for that first shot, which is the Warren Commission's conclusion, would not be warranted from this evidence, because the blur before frame 210, from 190 to 200, is clearly much larger than any blur after frame 210. In fact, there is really very little evidence for a blur in the appropriate amount of time after frame 210. Furthermore, there is some photo evidence that tends to support the thought of a shot in the time frame shortly before 190. For example, there is the Phillip Willis photograph which shows Mr. Zapruder in the background and the motorcade passing in between. Because the motorcade is in between, it is quite possible quite easy, to determine exactly which Zapruder frame that corresponds to, because you can tell which part of the motorcade is passing between Zapruder and Willis. And Willis said that he took that photograph as a reaction. He pressed the shutter as a reaction to what he perceived as the first shot, at least a shot. Well, it turns out that, that frame is 202. So that means that Mr. Willis is telling us that he pressed the shutter as part of his reaction to a shot, and he was reacting at frame 202, while here we see that Mr. Zapruder is in the middle of his reaction at frame 202. So that is very nice consistent evidence that something happened, say, at 190 or shortly before 190. Mr. CORNWELL. Mr. Chairman, I was incorrect earlier when I stated that JFK exhibits F-224, 225, 226, and 227, the Zapruder 16 film blow ups, had been previously admitted into evidence. I would at this time ask that they be admitted into evidence. Chairman STOKES. Without objection they may be entered into the record at this point. Mr. CORNWELL. I have no further questions. Thank you, Dr. Hartmann. Dr. HARTMANN. Thank you. Chairman STOKES. The committee will defer questioning of this witness until later this afternoon after the committee has had the advantage of hearing the acoustical evidence, which will come into the record shortly. Sir, we will defer our questioning of you until later this afternoon. Dr. HARTMANN. Thank you. Chairman STOKES. Thank you. The Chair recognizes Professor Blakey. STATEMENT OF G. ROBERT BLAKEY, CHIEF COUNSEL Mr. BLAKEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In September 1977 the committee learned of the existence of a Dallas police tape, one that had recorded the sounds of the assassination from the transmitter of a motorcycle policeman who had accidentally left his microphone switch in the on position. There was immediate hope that by scientifically enhancing the tape, the sound of the shots could be made audible. The committee was told by the Dallas Police Department that it thought that all of its assassination evidence had been turned over to the FBI. It did not therefore have a copy of the tape. One was obtained, nevertheless, from Mary Ferrell, a critic who lived in the city of Dallas. The committee then set out to find an acoustical consultant to analyze the tape. After consideration of five possible candidates, the committee picked the firm of Bolt, Beranek & Newman of Cambridge, Mass. Bolt, Beranek & Newman can count among its many important forensic accomplishments an analysis of the tape-recorded sounds of the Kent State shooting incident in 1970 and the discovery and analysis of the 18-minute gap in the Watergate Tapes. B. B. & N. first analyzed the segment of the radio program, "Four days that Shocked the World," that had been believed to have covered the assassination. As it turned out, it was not contemporaneous with the actual shooting of the President. The committee then forwarded the tape it had obtained from Mary Ferrell to B. B. & N., but no audible sounds could be discerned in the analysis. Meanwhile, committee investigators working on the case in Dallas were in contact with Paul McCaghren, a retired assistant police chief who had been assigned to a special Dallas police assassination investigating squad. McCaghren was one of several Dallas police veterans who donated their firsthand knowledge of the city to the committee. They "read us in to their backyard," so to speak, as one of our investigators so aptly put it. Their help has been invaluable. 17 Among the original documents and tapes that McCaghren supplied the committee was a crucial November 22, 1963 dispatch tape along with the dictabelts that recorded the transmission from the motorcycle with the open mike. These materials were promptly sent to Bolt, Beranek & Newman. To supplement the analysis of the tape, B. B. & N. experts also went to Dallas last month to conduct an acoustical reenactment based on the live firing of a rifle in Dealey Plaza. In these tests, the Dallas Police Department was exceptionally cooperative. It obtained weapons, constructed the bullet 'traps' and rerouted traffic during the 5 hours of testing, Police marksmen fired rounds from the Book Depository, as well as from the "grassy knoll." The final results of this work have only recently been received by the committee. Nevertheless, they have been thoroughly analyzed. The man in charge of the Bolt, Beranek & Newman acoustical analysis is Dr. James E. Barger the firm's chief scientist. Dr. Barger received a B.S. in mechanical engineering from the University of Michigan in 1957, an M.S. in mechanical engineering from the University of Connecticut in 1960, and an M.A. in applied physics from Harvard University in 1962. In 1964 he received a Ph.D. in applied physics from Harvard University. He has been a sonar project officer in the U.S. Navy Underwater Sound Laboratory, are search assistant at the Harvard University's Acoustics Research Laboratory, a senior scientist and director of the Physical Science Division with Bolt, Beranek & Newman, Inc. Dr. Barger is the author of numerous scientific papers. He has lectured in the field of applied acoustics in the United States and Canada and currently is a lecturer on sound scattering and reverberations with Bolt, Beranek & Newman's anti submarine warfare course. He has been a National Science Foundation fellow and currently is a fellow of the Acoustical Society of America. He is also a member of the U.S. Naval Advisory Board for Underwater Sound Reference Services. As chief scientist with Bolt, Beranek & Newman, Dr. Barger personally supervised the analysis of the 18-minute gap on the Nixon-Watergate tapes and the analysis, as I noted previously, of the gunfire sounds recorded during the shooting episode at Kent State University. Mr. Chairman, it would be appropriate at this time to call Dr. Barger. Chairman STOKES. The committee calls Dr. Barger. Doctor would you stand and be sworn? Do you solemnly swear the testimony you will give before this committee is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God? TESTIMONY OF JAMES E. BARGER Dr. BARGER. I do. Chairman STOKES. Thank you. You may be seated. Mr. Cornwell. Mr. CORNWELL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 18 Dr. Barger, I would like to first direct your attention to the point in time that our chief counsel just made reference to, namely, which the committee brought to you a tape recording of transmissions on on November 22. At that point in time, what did the committee ask you to try to do with that tape recording? Dr. BARGER. Mr. Cornwell, there was a series of questions that were asked in increasing order of difficulty. The first question and the least difficult potentially to answer was, simply, was the motorcycle with the stuck transmitter likely to have been in Dealey Plaza. If so, was the sound of shots recorded thereon or detectable thereon. And if that turned out to be the case, how many shots. If that could be determined, what was the time sequence between them, and if that could be determined, from what locations were the shots fired. And if by chance that also could be determined, what weapons fired the shots? Mr. CORNWELL. Would there be some reason to believe that you could answer any or all of these questions? Dr. BARGER. Well, the reason to believe that there may be answers to the latter questions was, of course, less likely than the former ones, but the answer was generally yes. The tapes had a good deal of noise on them, motorcycle noise, crowd noise, radio frequency interference, and the like. The most serious problem was the motorcycle noise. There is a way to help reduce that. It is a technique called adaptive filtering. It considers that the motorcycle is a repetitive device. As the cylinders fire, they do so periodically. The adaptive filter can learn to understand the event and project what will happen the next time the piston fires and subtract that noise out from the tape. We thought once the adaptive filtering was conducted, the tape might then be noise-free enough to attempt a detection of the sounds of gunfire. Now it was perfectly clear that these sounds were not clearly audible. There is in the field of detection theory a favorite approach called matched filtering. The matched filter is a device that is used to detect events that you have some understanding of even though they are subaudible. Matched filters are used in radar sets commonly to detect the presence of impulsive signals in noise, even though they are not visible or audible in the raw data. There was reason to believe that applying these techniques we might be able to detect the impulsive sounds of gunfire. Mr. CORNWELL. What, if anything, gave you reason to believe that you might be able to determine the direction from which gunfire came or the fact that it was gunfire? Dr. BARGER. When an impulsive source of sound is generated in an enclosed or semi-enclosed environment, such as an urban environment, the implusive sound spreads from the place where the sound was generated in all directions and is reflected, scattered, and diffracted into all possible receivers, such as microphones that might be stuck and such as ears. Now the impulsive signals that arrive at these receivers--microphones or ears--over all of these paths through the processes of reflection, and scattering, occur in a unique pattern, and that 19 pattern depends on where the source of sound was and where the receivers at that time. This unique pattern can be learned by, for example, reconstructing the sound of the acoustical event and measuring the unique pattern. If the microphone or receiver moves from one place to another, the pattern will change, and it is in fact these echo patterns that are the matching patterns that we considered using in the matched filter as a very powerful method for detecting the possible presence of gunfire in the tapes. Mr. CORNWELL. Let's begin with what you described as the unique sound of gunfire, and at this point show you JFK exhibit F-357. First, will you simply tell us what that is? Dr. BARGER. This is an exhibit that illustrates the acoustical disturbance generated by a rifle firing a supersonic bullet in free space. Mr. CORNWELL. At this time, Mr. Chairman, I would ask that that exhibit be admitted into evidence so that we may ask Dr. Barger further questions concerning it. Chairman STOKES. I am sorry, Counsel? I didn't hear you. Mr. CORNWELL. I would like to ask at this point if that exhibit might be admitted into evidence. Chairman STOKES. Without objection, it may be entered. [The information follows] 20 JFK EXHIBIT F-357 21 Mr. CORNWELL. Would you at this point then, Dr. Barger describe this phenomenon using the exhibit? Dr. BARGER. This simple diagram shows the location of a rifle firing a supersonic bullet along this horizontal trajectory. At the instant in time that this illustration depicts, the bullet is at position 1. The sound generated by the muzzle blast is expanding spherically around the origin of the gunfire, namely, the muzzle of the rifle. At the time depicted here, that impulsive sound spherical surface has reached the point shown by the circle. The bullet, however. being faster than the speed of sound has advanced beyond the position of the sound wave. It generates a shock wave as a supersonic transport would and the locus of that shock wave is from the bullet itself to the tangent of the sound wave at this point At a later time [now referring to the second exhibit] the bullet will have advanced, and both the shock wave and the sound wave would have expanded to the position shown here. The sound wave has expanded to this point, and the shock wave has progressed to this region. If an observer were at this point, at the first time that I showed, when the bullet was at this point, the observer would hear the shockwave because it would pass him at that time. At the second time that I show here, when the bullet is advanced to the second position, the sound waves of the rifle would reach the observer at that point and he would then hear the muzzle blast Mr. CORNWELL You have emphasized at several points that this is a diagram showing the principles with respect to a supersonic bullet. What, if any, differences would you find if the bullet were subsonic? Dr. BARGER. If the bullet were subsonic, at the first time that I have shown when the muzzle blast has reached this point, the bullet would have lagged behind the position of the sound wave at that point, and it would always be behind; getting farther and farther behind, as time went on; and no shockwave is generated by that bullet. Mr. CORNWELL If you wanted to look at those principles on a recording, would there be a way that you could do that? Dr. BARGER. Yes. This observer is the same as the receiver I spoke of earlier. It could be a microphone or a near, and there fore what I said for this observer holds for the---- Mr. CORNWELL. I would like at this point then to show you JFK exhibit F-364 and ask you if you could tell us what that is. Dr. BARGER. This is an illustration of the shape of the acoustical wave form generated by two rifles. Mr. CORNWELL. At this point, Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask that JFK exhibit F-364 be admitted into evidence. Chairman STOKES. Without objection, it may be entered into the record at this point. [The information follows:] 22 JFK EXHIBIT F-364 23 Mr. CORNWELL Would you now, Dr. Barger, tell us what that exhibit illustrates? Dr. BARGER. At the top of the illustration we show the acoustical waveforms of both the shock wave and the muzzle blast from a Mannlicher-Carcano. The shock wave was measured by a microphone 10 feet from the trajectory of the bullet and the muzzle blast was measured by the same microphone which was at the same time 30 feet from the muzzle. All of the acoustical pressures are plotted here as a function of time measured in milliseconds. The shock wave is a very sharp event looking something like the letter "N," capital letter"N"and in this case, with this weapon, the peak pressure of the shockwave is 130 decibels. Now let me just briefly describe the decibel as a measure of acoustical intensity. The reference pressure for the decibels that I describe is 2 times 10 to the minus 5 newtons per square meter the currently standard reference pressure. With respect to that pressure, the shockwave has an intensity of 130 decibels. The muzzleblast at 30 feet is more intense. It has an intensity of 137 decibels. Let me just give you a few facts about decibels that will help make this clear. If two sounds are otherwise similar but have a different loudness, a different intensity by 10 decibels, the louder of the two will sound twice as loud. On the other end of the scale, if two sounds are so slightly different in intensity that you can just perceive that difference, they will be different by 3 decibels. The muzzle blast then, more intense by 7 decibels, would sound almost twice as loud as the shockwave. It has a very sharp peak, a negative undershoot followed by quiescence, and these are characteristic of the waveforms of that rifle. A rifle firing a bigger charge is the M-l rifle. It also has a faster round. The muzzle velocity of the Mannlicher-Carcano is about 2,000 feet per second. The M-I is close to 3,000. Therefore the intensity of the shock wave radiated by the M-I is greater--being about 140 decibels when measured 10 feet from the flight path--is twice as loud as the Mannlicher-Carcano shockwave. The muzzle blast is also more intense. At 30 feet it would be about 145 decibels, being something less than twice as loud as the Mannlicher-Carcano. Mr. CORNWELL. I suppose we are all aware that the Dallas Police Department found a Mannlicher-Carcano on the sixth floor of the book depository, and the Warren Commission concluded that was the weapon used in the assassination. So I guess from that we could assume why you chose a Mannlicher-Carcano in the top graph to illustrate the principles you just described. But why did you choose an M-1 to illustrate in the lower portion of the graph? Dr. BARGER. Well, for one reason we had the data. The principal reason was that it is the loudest rifle that one could conceive might have been used in that environment. And the purpose then is to show that the loudest one we might have conceivably used is less than twice as loud. Mr. CORNWELL. I would like to now direct your attention to the part of your previous resume that referred to the fact that you 24 might be able to locate the shots and ask you if you would direct your attention at this time to JFK Exhibit F-334. Dr. BARGE..Yes. This is what is known in the field of scientific presentation as a cartoon. It illustrates the formation of echo patterns in urban environments. Mr. CORNWELL At this time, Mr. Chairman, I would ask that JFK exhibit F-334 be admitted into evidence. Chairman STOKES. Without objection, it may be entered in the record at this point. [The information follows:] JFK EXHIBIT F-334 25 Mr. CORNWELL. Would you explain then what the principles are that are illustrated by that? Dr. BARGER. Yes. I have said we are aiming for the application of a matched filter to the Dallas Police tape that Mr. Blakey described, seeking the possible detection of gunfire there upon. Now the pattern that will be the match in this filter would be an echo pattern as generated at a receiver, such as a microphone, in an urban environment that has buildings and an impulsive sound source that might have been generated in one of them. In the lower figure here, we show, along the horizontal scale, time increasing, and in the vertical scale here the amplitude of sound that might arise at any particular time. Now the sound from the muzzle of the rifle expands as I showed in the first exhibit, and it propagates along this direct path, which is the path having the least length between the source and the microphone. But I have illustrated that there are two here very close together marked D1 and D`2. The reason for that is that next to the direct path is another ray of sound that hits the street just below the microphone and reflects up into the microphone. Those two paths have very nearly the same length, therefore, they occur at very nearly the same time, and they have very nearly the same amplitude, and so I have plotted them at this same point. Now, sound propagating over this direct path loses energy only by spreading out to fill the sphere that I described in the first exhibit. Sound paths having the next highest amplitude are those that are reflected from the surface of a building. Reflection occurs when ever the angle of the sound ray incident upon the building is reflected from it at the same angle. The same sound that hit the building was reflected off. It is still going after reflection in only one direction, just as it was before reflection. Therefore, it has not been diminished in intensity. It has merely had the direction of its propagation changed. It then hits the microphone as does another similar path hit the street and then the microphone. These two paths being longer occur later. They are marked with R1 and R2 here, illustrating the reflected direct and reflected surface bounce path. The sounds that comprise echo patterns that have the next stronger amplitudes are the diffracted paths. These paths hit large edges such as the corner of a building. Now when the sound strikes the corner of that building, it is spread out in a plane that I am now describing with this pointer. It goes into all directions within that plane, including the direction of the microphone. Since some of the sound that hit that corner at that time went in other directions it is diminished in amplitude at the time it arrives at the microphone. Therefore, Path M that I just described, which is clearly shorter than the Path R because this corner is closer to the source than was the reflection path is right there, has a lower amplitude than the reflective path had. The furtherest corner of the building will give a diffracted path similarly. Now, we have discussed reflections and diffractions. The third most important, but generally the weakest method of changing the direction of sound is by scattering. I have illustrated 26 a parallelogram here which represents people or automobiles or anything of small size. When the sound hits an object of small size, it is sent out in all directions, including the direction of the microphone. Having been sent in all directions in space, it is diminished in amplitude considerably, so only if that scattering occurs close to the microphone, as I have shown here, or if the scattering object, namely this window sill, is close to the source, as I have shown here, will those paths have sensible amplitude. In order to have significant amplitude, the scattering object has to lie close to the direct path. Therefore the travel time over the scatter path has to be only slightly larger than the travel time over the direct path. Therefore, right after the loud sound arrival you see lots of weaker sound arrivals that are scattered from small objects. There are other buildings, of course, in a typical urban environment and in particular, in Dealey Plaza, and so there are diffracted and reflected sound paths coming in, as I have illustrated with a simple "U" here from other directions. They will occur at later times because they come from buildings that are further away and they will be scattered out in time. A cursory examination shows we would expect echo patterns that would persist for about 1 second. In that period of time there would be on the order of 10 or 12 reflected, diffracted and scattered paths having significant amplitude, namely, amplitudes above some threshold below which exists only noise. Mr. CORNWELL. If I understand correctly then, the sound would travel at the same rate of speed after it hit any of those surfaces no matter whether it was reflected or scattered or whatever, and therefore the spacing of the marks on a time scale would be detemined strictly by the distances that the sound had to travel from its source to the microphone or ear, is that correct? Dr. BARGER. That is correct. Mr. CORNWELL. In your hypothetical urban environment that you show there on JFK exhibit F-334, how many different points of sound source, or different locations for a point of sound source, and how many different locations for a microphone, might you expect to produce the exact same spacing of the points on the time scale and amplitude at those points? Dr. BARGER. It is clear that moving the portion of this microphone in any direction will alter the relative length of the sound paths and therefore alter the spacing between them. If there are enough different reflectors and scatterers, then the pattern achieved at any particular point is unique and would not be replicated at any other point. Mr. CORNWELL If we had a time scale such as shown at the bottom, you would expect that to be produced from a sound only in one place in the enviroment and at a point where the microphone or receiving ear was located at only one point? Dr. BARGER. That is correct. In the absence of noise, if you could measure this pattern precisely it would uniquely fix the position of the microphone. 27 Mr. CORNWELL. Now, you told use earlier that when you received the tape recording here in question you listened to it and had a large amount of noise or static in it, is that correct? Dr. BARGER. That is correct. Mr. CORNWELL. What did you do after initially listening to this recording? Dr. BARGER. Initially we listened to the whole tape and we found a tone point on the tape a 5 1/2-minute segment in which the sound of a motorcycle engine and other noises were heard continuously. This particular 5 1/2-minute segment was the period of the stuck microphone button that Professor Blakey described earlier. The sound in that 5 1/2-minutes was mostly motorcycle noise. However, there was a period halfway through it, approximately, where the motorcycle noise diminished. That is a brief description of what we heard. Now, as I said, we realized from the out set that we were seeking to detect sub-audible events or at least not audibly recognizable events and this is helped by looking at the electrical waveform that represents the sounds in a form called a waveform chart. So the first thing we did was to digitize the sounds in this 5 1/2-minute tape recording to form a computer file of the information contained by that digitalization, and then plot out a chart showing the waveform on the tape. This process was conducted by Dr. Wolf at BBN and it generated about 234 linear feet of waveform. Mr. CORNWELL. I now show you JFK exhibit F-335 and ask you if you can tell us what that is? Dr. BARGER. That is about ten feet of the 234 feet of waveform. Mr. CORNWELL. I would like at this time, Mr. Chairman, to ask that that exhibit be admitted into evidence. Chairman STOKES. Without objection, it maybe entered into the record. 28 JFK EXHIBIT F-335 29 Mr. CORNWELL What, if anything, did you learn from the production of this type of chart and your analysis of it? Dr. BARGER. This exhibit shows the waveform of the sounds on the tape displayed at 50 inches per second starting 130 seconds after the onset of the stuck microphone button and extending to the time of 141.6 seconds. Of course, it is difficult to see here without at telephoto lens but I will describe it to you. This continuation of rather constant level noise is typical of what preceded this segment for about 2 minutes. It is motorcycle noise. At this time, about 132 seconds after the microphone button became stuck, it is clear that the amplitude of that noise is diminishing. Shortly after that time, a series of impulsive events are seen in the tape. We concluded that it is possible that some of these impulsive events are in fact what an echo pattern would look like as transmitted through the radio in question. Mr. CORNWELL. In addition to the motorcycle noise, did you find on your graph other types of noise or static, something like that? Dr. BARGER. Yes. I just mentioned briefly that in addition to this continuum of noise which sounds like and apparently is motorcycle noise, there are sharp impulsive events of this type. They occur from time to time. Many of these have become understood by us to be impulsive events caused by other radios when they key in and attempt to transmit on this radio channel as well. Mr. CORNWELL. After 15 years in what condition was the tape? Did that possibly have any effect on the level of noise that you found? Dr. BARGER. The possibility that some of this noise was caused by the tape recording process is clearly are alone. The noises generated by the motorcycle are so intense that the noises generated by the recording process are relatively less. Therefore that is not the principal source of disturbance. Mr. CORNWELL. After reviewing the output in this form, what did you do next? Dr. BARGER. We realized that we could see impulsive events occurring at times after the motorcycle noise diminished of its own accord. We have then to determine whether such impulsive events might also be present in the tape recording at earlier times before the motorcycle in fact quieted down. We decided the best way to do that, as I mentioned briefly before, was to filter this tape recording through an adaptive filter that would, as I described it, learn about the motorcycle noise, project slightly ahead, and subtract it out. Mr. CORNWELL. There might be members of the committee who are familiar with some types of filters, but the particular type that you needed for this process, was it available in 1963? Dr. BARGER. No. Mr. CORNWELL. When, approximately, would it have been developed, do you know? Dr. BARGER. I am not exactly sure. The type of adaptive filter we used is called a Widrow adaptive filter. We used the least means squares logarithm to compute the filter weights. I don't believe that process was described in the literature until 1968 or so. Mr. CORNWELL. I would like to show you JFK exhibits F-336A and F-336B. Would you tell us what those are, please? 30 Dr. BARGER. These are about 18 feet of the waveforms that were obtained by filtering the motorcycle tape through the adaptive filter. The beginning time of this segment is 130 seconds after the onset of the stuck button, as was the previous exhibit. In this case, the terminating time is 150 seconds. Mr. CORNWELL. I would ask at this point, Mr. Chairman, that JFK exhibits F-336A and B be admitted into evidence. Chairman STOKES. Without objection, they may be entered into the record at this point. [The information follows:] JFK EXHIBIT F-336A JFK EXHIBIT F-336B 31 Mr. CORNWELL Did you learn anything new from reviewing the data in this filtered form? Dr. BARGER. Yes, we did, but these waveforms are sufficiently indistinct to you that you wouldn't be able to tell it from where you are sitting. The amplitude of the noise in the portions of the record where the motorcycle was heard most loudly have been reduced relative to the amplitude of the signals in the period where the motorcycle noise had previously and is still quiet. It, therefore, enabled us to examine those portions of the tape that were recorded when the motorcycle was running faster and during which time the noise of the motorcycle was perhaps obscuring any impulsive sounds that might in fact appear to be echo patterns. Mr. CORNWELL What, if any, technique did you apply to learn more about the data after receiving it in this filtered form? Dr. BARGER. After examining the 234 feet of filtered waveforms we discovered there were no other impulsive events on the tape that had been masked by the motorcycle noise, with one exception. That impulsive series of events came near the end of the 5-minute segment and was very unlike the series of impulsive events that we see before us here, at times around 130 seconds after the stuck button. Mr. CORNWELL. What, specifically, did you do to determine what the nature of the impulsive events were? Dr. BARGER. At this stage we conducted a series of tests which we call screening tests, to determine whether those impulsive events might be ruled out as gunfire. I might add before we did that we did attempt some different analyses beyond those that I have described so far, that would help us understand the nature of the impulsive events that we did in fact perceive. The first of those analyses, in fact, was a calculation of the spectrographic analysis of some of the transient events. Mr. CORNWELL I would like to show you JFK exhibit F-356 and ask you, Would it be possible for you to use that exhibit to illustrate the analysis, the spectrographic analysis you just mentioned? Dr. BARGER. Yes. This exhibit is made up of two spectrographs of two segments of the tape recording that help explain the presence of some of the impulses on the tape. Mr. CORNWELL May we have JFK exhibit F-356 admitted into evidence Mr. Chairman? Chairman STOKES. Without objection it may be entered at this point. [The information follows:] 32 JFK EXHIBIT F-356 Dr. BARGER. There were a series of impulsive events on the tape that were particularly numerous at times about 145 seconds to 150 seconds. These are shown in a spectrogram as follow: The time on the spectrogram is marked on the horizontal scale in seconds. The frequency of the energy in the sounds on the tape at each time is marked on the vertical scale in kilohertz. At this point, half a kilohertz, is the frequency approximately equal to the pitch of middle C on a piano. The height of these spikes -- the distance the spike reaches upward in this coordinate indicates how sharp it is, how much high frequency content it contains, but that is about all. The interesting thing shown are these horizontal dark bands. The horizontal dark bands are the sounds made visible in the spectrogram that are caused by the heterodyning between two radio transmitters. The radio transmitter with the stuck microphone is transmitting for sure. There are other radios that transmit on the channel, which puts their carrier frequency onto the air as well. The carrier frequencies of the two radios are not exactly the same. They beat between each other and generate what is called a heterodyne tone, a beep. The indication of that beep, which would 33 be determined by where it was positioned in the vertical dimension of the spectrogram, is dependent on the exact radio in question and what its carrier frequency really is. We see there are heterodyne tones with this pitch, this pitch and this pitch, and even with this pitch. That indicates that during this time there were at least four other radios that were briefly trying to transmit by pressing their talk buttons. When they realized the channel was still in use, they let it up. So the time between when they push the button, which generates a transient, until the time they let up the button, which also generates a transient, there is a heterodyne tone observable in the spectrogram. These tones were subaudible on the tape so the spectrogram revealed their presence. Whenever there were a pair of impulses with a heterodyne tone between them, we knew those impulses were generated by another transmitter and should be eliminated from consideration as possible members of an echo pattern. Mr. CORNWELL In addition to the spectrographic analysis you have just described were there any other techniques that you utilized in order to determine whether or not the impulseses on the tape were infact associated or might be associated with gunfire. Dr. BARGER. Yes, there was one in particular. We wanted to demonstrate there were audible acoustical sounds on the tape. The sound of a bell toll at 152 seconds from the time of the stuck button was vaguely evident. We wished to analyze that segment of the tape with an energy spectrurn. Mr. CORNWELL. I show you JFK exhibit F-355 and ask you to tell us what that is. Dr. BARGER. This is what I just described. The energy spectrum of the segment of the tape that contains the toll of the bell. Mr. CORNWELL May we have JFK exhibit F-355 admitted into evidence, Mr. Chairman? Chairman STOKES. Without objection, it may be entered in to the record at this point. [The information follows:] 34 JFK EXHIBIT F-355 35 Dr. BARGER. In this exhibit the frequency of each component of sound is plotted on the horizontal scale and the loudness of that component is plotted on the vertical scale, again in decibels. The nature of an energy spectrum, if you have nothing in the record except noise, is a rather jiggly line, sometimes described as a hairy line, that is rather gently undulating in the frequency domain. However, if there are periodic components in the sound, such as generated by a bell or an overtone of a bell, they will generate a spike in the spectrum such as these spikes that are clearly visible in this exhibit. Infact, there is a harmonic series of periodic events that are visible in this record and we have labeled them with the number 1 to represent the fundamental, and the numbers 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, to represent the harmonic overtones. This particular spectrum, which was calculated by Mr. Schmidt, has been done over a third of a second of the tape that was identified by the audible, but barely audible, sound of this bell. Now, there is a very interesting feature in this spectrum and that is in particular this particular peak. The reason this is of significance is as follows: It is characteristic of the design and manufacture of carillon bells that they contain a harmonic series such as I have numbered here. The fundamental frequency is in the description of carillon sounds called the hum note. The second harmonic is called the strike note and that is the note to which the bell is tuned. In this case that is 440 hertz which is A below middle C. The strike note characteristically has a minor third above it and this peak in the spectrum is at the right frequency ratio to the strike tone to be the minor third of a carillon bell. They typically have a fifth and an upper third above them and both of those overtones are clearly evident in the spectrum of this bell. It is not at all unlikely that a strong seventh overtone of the hum note would appear. This, therefore, is a very clear indication that the bell is a large carillon bell. The sound of it would reach this tape recording only through an acoustical path. Mr. CORNWELL. So somewhat similar to the spectro graphic analysis technique, by applying the energy spectrum analysis you were again able to identify transients or short peaks in the data which were not associated with gunfire? Dr. BARGER. That is correct. Mr. CORNWELL At this point then you had filtered the tape and you had eliminated both back ground noise, such as the motorcycle, and a number of other transients using the techniques you just described, what conclusions were you able to draw at this point from your analysis? Dr. BARGER. We concluded there were sounds of acoustical origin on the tape, giving us confidence that the acoustical part of the otherwise partially malfunctioning transmitter was working. We found that there are impulses on the tape that are unique to the segment following 130 seconds from the onset of the stuck button and a cursory examination of those impulses indicated that we could not rule out the possibility that they were in fact echo patterns. Mr. CORNWELL. What did you do next? 36 Dr. BARGER. Well, it seemed prudent to do something more than a cursory examination of the echo patterns so we devised six screening tests to determine if they might in fact be the sounds of gunfire. If the echo patterns passed these six screening tests we would proceed to the filter detector which I described before as the most powerful test we could perform. The first screening test was: Did the impulsive patterns on the tape occur at the time of the assassination? The second screening test was, simply: Were these patterns that occurred at this time in the data unique throughout the 5.5-minute segment? In other words, could they be shown to have occurred only once? Third, we asked, did the span of time occupied by the impulse patterns cover at least 5 seconds? Because if they had not, they could not possibly represent the entire span of the gunfire as given by analysis of the Zapruder film. Fourth, we asked, do the shape of the impulses on this tape recording resemble the shape of impulses of gunfire transmitted through that type of radio? They certainly didn't resemble the wave forms of gunfire I showed in the first exhibit, as the radio would be expected to distort them. Would it have distorted them in the way that they appear on the tape? The fifth screening test was: Does the narrow range of observed amplitudes of the impulses on the tape correspond to the expected range of amplitudes for the wide range of echo amplitudes as compressed up on transmission through the radio? The sixth one was: Do the number of impulses that we would expect in an echo pattern in Dealey Plaza approximate the number of impulses that are seen in the tape to occur at this time? Those six questions were asked and they received an affirmative answer. Mr. CORNWELL. Let me ask you--I believe your explanation perhaps was clear that you wanted to find out if they occurred at the right time of day; if they were unique, in other words, if they were not so thoroughly scattered throughout the data that they were the cause of something else; that their shape was appropriate; that they had the right amplitude or height after the compression of the radio; and that there was approximately the right number of impulses. But you also stated--I believe your third item was that the time span had to be at least 5 seconds. Do I understand--you made reference to the Zapruder film--is that simply a matter of looking at the headshot at 313, or 312, and going back into the film at which point I suppose everyone would agree that the participants, the President and Governor Connally, are clearly reacting, and saying that there was at least a minimum period of time of 5 seconds that the shots had to cover. Is that accurate? Dr. BARGER. That is accurate. Mr. CORNWELL. So no matter what else might ultimately be found out about the number of shots, or the timing, or sequencing, or anything else, you at that point were looking to see if at least covered a 5-second span? Dr. BARGER. That is correct. Mr. CORNWELL. Then, let's go to the first test and show you JFK exhibit F-366 and ask you if you can tell us what that is? 37 Dr. BARGER. Yes. This is an illustration of how we attempted to achieve our best estimate of the time of the assassination. Mr. CORNWELL May we have JFK exhibit F-366 admitted into evidence, Mr. Chairman? Chairman STOKES. Without objection, it may be entered at this point. [The information follows:] 38 JFK EXHIBIT F-366 39 Dr. BARGER. The data depicted in this exhibit were obtained by listening to channel 2 of the Dallas Police Dispatcher System. Channel 2 was in use on that day and at that time by, among others, the chief of police who was in the lead car just ahead of the President. Channel 2, like channel 1, was recorded; the sounds that were carried over channel 2, like 1, were recorded. They were recorded on a Gray Audograph which unfortunately records intermittently. When a radio is broadcasting a signal, the recorder turns on and records the sounds. When no one is recording, the recorder stops. This saves recording space. As a result of that feature, we, in the laboratory, while listening to that tape recording, with a stopwatch, timed the annotations that the dispatcher read out from reading his clock. These times are plotted on the horizontal scale, each time he gave an annotation. For example, if he said 12:28 and our stopwatch read 5.5 minutes we would put a dot there. If he then said 12:28 a half minute later, which was not uncommon-in other words, he would only annotate the tape to the nearest whole minute--we would then note the time that that was heard and plot that point. Now we have then obtained the stopwatch time, or we might say the laboratory time, plotted against the clock time that the Dallas police dispatcher on channel 2 had at that time, and the data follows this bent line. When one has data of this sort one draws a straight line through them by a mathematical procedure called the least squares fit. This straight line that you have drawn becomes your best estimate of the time correspondence between your watch in the laboratory and between the channel 2 dispatchers clock at the Dallas Police Department. At times prior to 12:30 the best estimate by the least squares procedure of the correspondence between laboratory time and Dallas police channel 2 time is a line that has a slope less than one. This indicates that on the average the recorder used to record the dispatchers voice was running very slowly. The reason that perception is given is that it was actually off part of the time when no one was speaking. However, at about 12:30 the voice traffic increased so much on channel 2 that the recorder operated then continuously and thereafter our estimated correspondence between laboratory time as measured on the stop watch and Dallas dispatcher 2 time has the slope of one. That means the recorder is on all the time. Well, that is not tremendous information. However, the purpose for doing this was to note with the stopwatch that at this time, as we listened to the tape, we hear the chief of police say, "We are approaching the triple underpass." And 19 seconds later on the stopwatch we heard him saying, "We are going to the hospital." It has been recorded that the chief of police heard the shots and he has testified that he had heard them. It is unlikely that he would give a routine position report after having heard them, so it can be presumed or we should presume that the assassination 40 occurred sometime between those two voice transmissions by the the Police Chief. If one then goes over horizontally from that time estimate to our estimated correspondence of channel 2 time to stopwatch time we have our best estimate for the time of assassination, which is 12 seconds past 12:30. Mr. CORNWELL. I now show you JFK exhibit F-365 and ask if you can identify that. Dr. BARGER. This is the same kind of activity but conducted when listening to the sounds on the channel 1 tape. Mr. CORNWELL. May we have JFK exhibit F-365 admitted into evidence, Mr, Chairman. Chairman STOKES. Without objection, it may be entered into the record. [The information follows:] 41 JFK EXHIBIT F-365 42 Dr. BARGER. The purpose here is to determine at what time the impulsive sounds on channel 1 occurred to see if they were at the same time as the time of the assassination. Here is the time read on the stopwatch that is observed by the dispatcher on channel 1 in the Dallas Police Department which is a different clock than that observed by the dispatcher on channel 2. This is channel 1 dispatcher time; this is laboratory time measured with a stopwatch. This dispatcher was more talkative and the time annotations that he gave are more numerous--for example, he gave three time annotations at the time 12:26 and so we have mored at a here upon which to base a time estimate, using the least squares technique. The straight line indicates the result of that time estimate. There is nothing audible during this 5 1/2 minute period because mostly all you hear is motorcycle noise and so the channel 1 dispatcher made no time annotations there. However, before and after he did--and that gave us the possibility of forming the estimate for how his clock read them. We measured on the tape the time of the first impulsive sequence that we think may possibly be gunfire and we come over to our time estimate and down and find that we estimate the first impulse to have occurred at 12:30 and 47 seconds. Now, the estimate for the time of the first impulse then is about 35 seconds after the estimate of the assassination. If both dispatchers had been looking at the same clock, I would have had to conclude that the impulses on the tape would not pass this first screening test. In other words, the impulses occurred too late. On the other hand, each dispatcher was looking at a different clock. I have read in testimony in the Warren Commission report that the two clocks are not synchronized except once a month at the first of the month. This was the 22d. The two clocks were subsequently found by the FBI to be l minute off, so the variation in the times that we have discovered here is within the known accuracy of the two clocks. We have to conclude that the possibility that the impulses represent gunfire passed the first screening test; namely, that they apparently occurred at the time of the assassinations. Mr. CORNWELL. So I take it then that the question of whether the impluses occur at approximately the time the shots were fired has been answered in the affirmative using a comparison of both channel 1 and channel 2. Dr. BARGER. That is right. Mr. CORNWELL. You have referred of course, throughout your testimony to the fact that it was a motorcycle which you believe had its button stuck and that, of course, according to the last exhibit and your previous testimony was a thing that caused the 5- minute gap or a continual transmission from that stuck button on channel 1. Is channel 1, however, the channel on which you would expect to find that type of motorcycle transmission? Dr. BARGER. Channel 1 was the normal channel in use in Dallas. Channel 2 is used for special occasions such as the motorcycle at the head of the motorcade on channel 2. Some of those motorcycles near the limousine were known to have been switched to channel 2. 43 On the other hand, listening to the voice communications on channel 2 at times before and after 12:30, I discovered the presence of the call numbers of several motorcycle policemen in the motorcade that were on channel 1. Mr. CORNWELL. Moving next to the second screening test that you mentioned, namely, whether the impulses were unique, I would like to ask you if you would describe what you did to determine the answer to that question. Dr. BARGER. Yes. We examined the full 234 linear feet of the waveform representing the output of the channel 1 recording when the button was stuck to see if there were any other impulsive patterns that occurred that were similar to these that we are looking at on channel 1. We found that there was one other sequence of impulsive events. It was dissimilar from the one we have looked at principally in that its timespan was less than 5 seconds. It occurred about a minute later than the period of impulses in question. We found no other impulsive patterns on the tape. Mr. CORNWELL. So the answer to the second question is again in the affirmative? Dr. BARGER. Yes. Mr. CORNWELL. Going into test No. 3, which was the question of whether there was a timespan of at least 5 seconds, I would like to direct your attention to JFK exhibits F-336 A and B. These are exhibits that have already been admitted into evidence. Could you use them to illustrate your analysis with respect to the third test? Dr. BARGER.. The impulsive events that we felt hypothetically might represent echo patterns began at approximately 137 seconds after the stuck button commences and continue through this portion at about 147 seconds. This period of impulses, this period, this period, and this period, represent four typical segments of the tape. The span between them is 10 seconds and that is more than 5. Mr. CORNWELL. Now, with respect to test 4, that the impulses were of approximately the correct shape, how did you go about resolving that question? Dr. BARGER. In this case we were familiar with the shape of transient waveforms generated by rifle fire and those were shown in the second exhibit. However, we saw that those waveforms did not appear in the tape that we were analyzing. We knew, however, that the loudness of the impulses from gunfire so near--well, anywhere in Dealey Plaza--would be so loud as to overload the radio, to exceed its capacity to transmit without distortion of the waveforms in question. In order to test whether the Dallas radio distorted the gunfire impulses in the way, or in the approximate way, that we see in these records, Mr. Robinson found a similar Motorola FM radio in use with the MDC Police in Massachusetts. He was able to test that radio by playing sounds of the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle, as tape recorded, electrically into its microphone connection, through an electronic circuit that mimicked the electro acoustical behavior of the microphone. He then went back to the receiver at the police station and made a recording of the distorted sounds that were in 44 fact transmitted. The next exhibit illustrates those distorted waveform she measured. Mr. CORNWELL. I show you JFK exhibit F-368. As you just noted, that is an exhibit which would help you illustrate the techniques you have just described, is that correct? Dr. BARGER. I anticipate that that will be the one. Mr. CORNWELL. May we have JFK exhibit F-368 admitted into evidence, Mr. Chairman? Chairman STOKES. Without objection, it may be entered into evidence at this point. [The information follows:] JFK EXHIBIT F-368 45 Dr. BARGER. This illustration shows on the left side waveforms due to muzzle blasts and on the right side waveforms generated by shock waves from the Mannlicher rifle. In this photograph we see the waveform of a muzzle blast that was measured, with a good microphone, from a Mannlicher-Carcano. The amplitude of the muzzle blast is shown in time covering a total span on this illustration of 10 milliseconds. In this case we have the waveform, which is that sharp N shaped waveform shown that was measured from the shock wave of a bullet from a Mannlicher-Carcano, also on a scale covering 10 milliseconds. In this column we show the waveform transmitted by the radio to the receiver and subsequently analyzed at the receiver, as a function of the level of the loudness of the muzzle blast that was played into the radio; 139 decibels, very loud, 129, half as loud in terms of human response, 119, half again as loud, 109, half again as loud, 99, half again as loud. We see that the relatively simple shape of the muzzle blast waveform is made more confused by the radio. it oscillates more; it lasts longer in time and its shape in fact depends on how loud it was. The radio therefore was performing nonlinear distortion and compression on these waveforms at the levels indicated. Here the N wave coming in at 139 decibel level has a nice pristine N shaped waveform and comes out of the radio as a lower frequency oscillation. That is true even at a 10-decibel lower level, et cetera. But when you get down 30 decibels lower than this one, the radio now is capable of transmitting that waveform in an undistorted form. Mr. CORNWELL So we can see the basic distortion at different decibel levels. Do I understand that the various decibel levels are shown because they would correspond perhaps to different distances that the blast might be from a receiver such as a microphone? Dr. BARGER. We have observed that the loudness of the muzzle blast waveforms during the test reconstruction in Dallas measured at the microphones closest to the rifle were 135 decibels, virtually the same as the loudest here. The loudest sounds measured at the most distant receivers were about 20 decibels lower than that, so the range of the loudest sounds is easily covered in this investigation. It shows that one cannot hope to identify, for example, the type of rifle fired by looking at the waveform; because the waveform that is characteristic of the rifle is severely distorted by the radio because it is too loud for the radio. Mr. CORNWELL. I now would show you JFK exhibit F-369 and ask you if you can tell us what that is? Dr. BARGER. This is a graph that quantifies, better for people who think in terms of graphs, the capacity of this radio not to accept and transmit loud sounds as efficiently as it transmits weak ones. Mr. CORNWELL. Mr. Chairman, may we have JFK exhibit F-369 entered into the record? Chairman STOKES. Without objection, it may be entered at this point. 46 JFK EXHIBIT F-369 Dr. BARGER. Down here in decibels on this scale, increasing to the right, are the loudness of sounds introduced into the microphone. On this scale reading upwards are increasing loudnesses of sounds that are transmitted by the radio. These lines up in the region of loud sounds, where I said the levels of sounds in Dealey Plaza were, 109-139 decibels, are quite flat. In other words, if the loudness of the signals that were actually heard in Dealey Plaza were 30 decibels in range from the loudest to the softest, then, the loudness of the sound transmitted by the radio would only differ by 10 decibels. This is described as amplitude limitation. It would indicate that all of the loud and even the softer echos in the echo patterns at Dealey Plaza would have about the same loudness on the tape that was made after transmission through the radio. It was necessary to see if the radio caused this limitation, because this removes the subjective impression of gunfire from listening to these compressed sounds. Mr. CORNWELL. Perhaps you could be seated at this point. I will ask you finally with respect to the final screening test No. 6, concerning the question of whether or not the number of impulses roughly corresponded, what did you do to answer that question? Mr. BARGER. We took a map of Dealey Plaza and calculated a rough approximation, using the mathematics of reflected, diffracted, and, scattered sounds, the number of echoes that we thought would be loud enough to audible over the noise of a motorcycle. We found there would be about 10 for a typical microphone location. Then we counted the number of impulses in each pattern of impluses that we see in the waveform records of the tape and we saw there were about 20. We realized there was still a possibility that these implusive sounds that we saw in the record of the tape were in fact caused by gunfire. Mr. CORNWELL. At this point then you had devised six screening tests, anyone of which I take it might have been sufficient to rule 47 out these impulses as being gunshots, and they in fact passed all six tests, is that correct? Dr. BARGER. Quite so. Mr. CORNWELL. Now, at this point did you have any conclusions or, on the other hand, did you feel that further testing was required? Dr. BARGER. At this point we felt we were justified in suggesting to the committee that a matched filter detection trial was warranted on the tape. As I said, the patterns that formed the basis for the match would have to be obtained by an acoustical reconstruction. The reason for suggesting the matched filter procedure for detecting the events was it is the most powerful method we know of with which to do that. Mr. CORNWELL. How about telling us in just plain, common language what you are referring to when you say anacoustical reconstruction? Dr. BARGER. The objective is to obtain echo patterns of the sort that I described briefly before, and the purpose for having these patterns is to become the basis of the match in the matched filter detector. In order to get these echo patterns, it was necessary to design a test that would get echo patterns that would in fact match with the events on the tape if in fact there were events on the tape that were gunfire. Mr. CORNWELL. In other words, you suggested to the committee they go back to Dealey Plaza and fire a rifle there so you could record it and see exactly what it looked like in that urban environment? Dr. BARGER. That is correct. Mr. CORNWELL Before doing so, did you seek any independent opinion or consultation on this recommendation that you had made to the committee? Dr. BARGER. Yes, we did. I think the committee felt that it would be wise for them to obtain a second opinion on the wisdom of conducting this test, and in order to do that they obtained the agreement of professors Mark Weiss and Ernest Aschkenasy oF Queens College to look at the results of our six screening tests that I just described and to look at our preliminary design for this echo pattern test or acoustical reconstruction and to form an opinion about whether they agreed with us that it was a reasonable and necessary thing to do. Mr. CORNWELL For the record, Mr. Chairman, Prof. Mark Weiss, whom Dr. Barger has just referred to, received a bachelor of electrical engineering degree from the City College of New York in 1952, and an M.S. in electrical engineering from Columbia in 1957. He has been a staff engineer at the Columbia University Electronics Research Laboratories and a project engineer and vice president for Acoustics Research at the Federal Scientific Corp. Currently, he is professor of computer science at the Queens College in the City University of New York. Mr. Weiss has written numerous scientific articles and technical reports. He is a fellow of the Acoustical Society of America and a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineering. Mr. Weiss served on a panel of experts appointed to examine the Nixon-Watergate tape recordings during the grand jury investigation. 48 The other individual Dr. Barger just referred to, Ernest Aschkenasy, received a bachelor of electrical engineering degree in 1967 and a master of electrical engineering degree in 1972, both from the City College of New York. He has been involved in the analysis and enhancement of acoustic signals for over 10 years and was an associate professor with Professor Weiss in the examination of the White House tape recording in 1974. He is currently a senior research associate in the Department of Computer Science of Queens College. Did Professor Weiss and Mr. Aschkenasy agree that testing in Dealey Plaza was a necessary and proper thing to do? Dr. BARGER. Yes. Mr. CORNWELL After consultation with the authorities of Dallas, Tex., the committee, of course, ultimately agreed that you should conduct the testing. What problems did you focus upon at this point in time that you would face in designing and conducting a valid test? Dr. BARGER. If I may just make a comment before I answer that question, I remember something I was going to say before, that I forgot. In fact, I did not supervise the Judge Siricapanel that examined the tape recordings that President Nixon had made. Dr. Richard Bolt, of B.B. & N., did that. I happened to have been director of one of the divisions of the company in which some of that work was done. Now I remember your question, so I can answer it. The first problem that had to be solved in designing the test was the fact that we didn't know where the motorcycle was, if, in fact, it was there at all. The second problem was, although we had evidence about the type of rifle used that was fired from the Texas School Book Depository, we had no evidence about the alleged weapon that might have been on the knoll. For example, we didn't even know whether it was a rifle or a pistol. The allegation didn't include that information. We had to consider, also, where to put the targets at which to fire the bullets. As I have explained, the pattern of the N wave shed from the bullet is distinct, so the echo pattern at any one point depends upon the direction in which the rifle is pointing, as well as the place where it is fired from. So we need to decide where, in fact to fire the bullets. There was evidence the bullets, of course, had hit the limousine, the occupants in the limousine. There was evidence that a bullet had struck the curb on Main Street, down by the triple underpass, and there are the other indications by the presence of the impulses in the tape that there may have been a shot fired up near the corner of Houston and Elm, so we used those results to place the targets. The next problem we had to figure out was what ammunition to use; since the N waves are important. You have to have the muzzle velocity correct, and we needed to find ammunition that had a nearly similar muzzle velocity to that used by Oswald, or alleged to have been used by him. We had to consider as a matter of practical significance the amount of time it would take to conduct the acoustical reconstruction. Requiring live ammunition as it did, of course people had to 49 be excluded from the area, and that can only be done for a short period of time. We had also to accommodate the listening tests that were conducted by Dr. Green, and which he will describe later. Mr. CORNWELL. I would like to show you now JFK exhibit F-337. I would ask you if you could use that exhibit to illustrate how you solved some of the various problems in setting up the test you have just mentioned. Dr. BARGER. Yes. This exhibit illustrates the portions of the microphones, the targets and everything else. Mr. CORNWELL. Mr. Chairman, may we admit into evidence at this time JFK exhibit F-337? Chairman STOKES. Without objection, it may be entered into the record at this point. [The information follows:] JFK EXHIBIT F-337 Dr. BARGER. We positioned 12 microphones, as an array of microphones, in each of three positions: This group of 12; this group of 12; and this group of 12. The objective here was to cover all of the positions where the motorcycle may have been, and still expect to hear the sounds of gunfire in a dense enough way so that the echo patterns received on adjacent microphones would not be so differ- 50 ent that no match could ever be achieved should the motorcycle have been halfway between two of them. The target locations that we selected, based on the evidence that I cited earlier, were here, No. 4; here is Zapruder frame location 313, target 3 at this point; and target 1 there. Rifles were fired from here [indicating the T.S.B.D.], as evidence indicates it was. A rifle and a pistol were fired from here [indicating the grassy knoll], as allegations have indicated there may have been. Mr. CORNWELL OK, when you say "from here and from here," simply for the record, you were pointing at that point to the Texas School book Depository as being where a rifle was fired from and the grassy knoll where both a pistol and a rifle were fired. Dr. BARGER. That is correct. Mr. CORNWELL. I would like to ask you now to look at JFK exhibit F-344 and tell us what this shows. Dr. BARGER. This simply shows the sequence of shots executed for each microphone array position in turn. Mr. CORNWELL. May we have JFK exhibit F-344 admitted into evidence, Mr. Chairman? Chairman STOKES. Without objection, it may be entered into the evidence. [The information follows] JFK EXHIBIT F-344 Dr. BARGER. Here are shown the four target locations. The first rifle position was in the depository, with the muzzle of the rifle in the plane of the window. Here the rifle was in the same position, but the muzzle was withdrawn 2 feet from the plane of the window. This was done because we had no clear evidence about where the muzzle, infact, was relative to the plane of the window, and that small difference makes a noticeable difference in the loudness of the muzzle blast as perceived in the plaza. 51 The third location was from the knoll, firing with the rifle. The fourth was from the knoll firing with the pistol. The shot numbers here indicate the sequence in which the shots were fired and the absence of any number in any place indicates there was no correspondings hot fired. Mr. CORNWELL Now, the numbers across the top where it says "No. 1, No. 2, No. 3," what does those correspond to? Dr. BARGER. These correspond to the numbers of the targets, 1, 2, 3, 4, that were fired at. Mr. CORNWELL And the rifles which were used both from the window and from the grassy knoll were of what type? Dr. BARGER. I am sorry; I missed that. Mr. CORNWELL The rifles which were used both from the Texas School book Depository and from the knoll were of what type? Dr. BARGER. They were both of the Mannlicher Carcano type. Mr. CORNWELL. And the pistol was of what type? Dr. BARGER. It was a 38 caliber pistol, of what manufacture I don't remember. Mr. CORNWELL But the pistol would have been a subsonic weapon, is that correct? Dr. BARGER. It was chosen to have a subsonic missile; that is correct. Mr. CORNWELL. Then, if we were to read JFK exhibits F-344 and F-337 together, would it be accurate to state that the sequence of shots in each array was pursued in numerical sequence for each array of microphones indicated on the plot of the plaza. Dr. BARGER. That is correct. The sequence indicated here was fired three times in repetition, once for each array location and each time ammunition of Norma manufacture was fired. The shot sequence was then repeated a fourth time when our recording equipment was recording the microphones in the third portion, with Western Cartridge Co. ammunition. This type of ammunition was of the same sort thought to have been used by Oswald. Mr. CORNWELL Why were the first 3 arrays of 12 shots--actually, 11 shots with a rifle; 1 with a pistol--why were they fired with Norma ammunition instead of Western Cartridge Co.? Dr. BARGER. I understand that the Western Cartridge Co. ammunition of this type is no longer manufactured and is hard to obtain, and the committee could only get enough to fire through the sequence once; so Norma was used the rest of the time. Mr. CORNWELL. So at least the results could be compared to see if there was any substantial difference between Norma and Western Cartridge Co. Dr. BARGER. That is correct. Mr. CORNWELL. Now, I would like to direct your attention to JFK exhibits F-339, F-340, F-341, and F-342. Dr. BARGER. These are photographs that were taken during the period when we were setting up the acoustical reconstruction in Dallas. Mr. CORNWELL May we have these four exhibits admitted into evidence, Mr. Chairman? Chairman STOKES. Without objection, they may be entered into evidence. [The information follows:] 52 JFK EXHIBIT F-339 JFK EXHIBIT F-340 53 JFK EXHIBIT F-341 JFK EXHIBIT F-342 Dr. BARGER. This one shows a portion of Houston Street and all of Elm Street. The yellow x's on the street correspond to the position of the black dots on the previous exhibit and were where the microphones were placed. These sandbags that are observable here, barely observable here and there, are the first three of the 54 four targets. The total number of sandbags available was insufficient to set up a fourth target simultaneously, so this pile of sandbags was transported to that location periodically. Mr. CORNWELL. So the sandbag targets 3 and 4 were moved back and forth, and you pointed to the place. Dr. BARGER. That is right. This photograph simply shows a ground level view of the microphones used to record the sounds at array position 3, and the sandbags with sand leaking out of them. So the experiment was problably over by that time. Here is a photograph from the knoll, looking up at the microphones in array position 3, and the sandbags. Here the marksman and his assistants are in the position where Oswald was thought to have fired. Mr. CORNWELL The very last exhibit you made reference to, of course, was taken on the sixth floor of the Texas Schoolbook Depository before the test began, is that correct? Dr. BARGER. No; I am not sure when it was taken, but it was taken there. Mr CORNWELL. Let me ask you this. At least during the testing the widows were closed down to the way they were in photographs taken about the time of the assassination, is that correct? Dr. BARGER. That is a question I can testify about. It was known from the photographic evidence that during the period of the assassination the windows in the sixth floor were down with the exception of this one through which Oswald is thought to have fired, and it was halfway down. It was important to the accuracy of the reconstruction that all those windows be in that position exactly during the shots, and they were. However, it was a hot day and the people in this room opened the windows between shots to air themselves out. Mr. CORNWELL I now show you JFK exhibits F-358 and F-359. Dr. BARGER. These appear to be aerial photographs of Dealey Plaza that would be quite recent, because they include several structures that were not there in 1963. Mr. CORNWELL May we have those admitted into evidence, Mr. Chairman? Chairman STOKES. Without objection, they may be entered into evidence. [The information follows:] 55 JFK EXHIBIT F-358 JFK EXHIBIT F-359 Mr. CORNWELL. There is simply one part of those exhibits I would like to direct your attention to, Dr. Barger, and that is the very large new hotel structure which would appear somewhat to the south of the plaza. Would you tell us whether or not that, of course, was there the day that you did the testing? 56 Dr. BARGER. The echo patterns that we expected to receive and did, in fact, receive had a maximum time span of 1 second. There were other echoes that came in at later times that were very weak, so weak that they were not considered in any of the matches and could not have been represented on the DPD tape because they were so weak relative to the loud echoes. So, the only echo patterns we ever needed or used were never longer than 1 second. The time required for sound to travel from the depository to that structure and back is a little more than than 3 seconds, the echoes from that remote structure had no effect on the matching process what so ever. Mr. CORNWELL. You then have indicated that the large structure was present on the day you did testing. It would not have been present, I take it, in 1963, but, nevertheless, it was so far removed from the plaza, that it would not have affect in any manner the results of the test. Dr. BARGER. That is correct. It did not. Its echo came in much later than any of the echoes on the echo patterns that we used. Mr. CORNWELL. What did you obtain from the testing? Dr. BARGER. As a result of the four sequences of 12 - shot firings, we had 432 different test shot recordings on magnetic tape. Mr. CORNWELL Were they of the quality that you had hoped? Did the equipment function properly, et cetera? Dr. BARGER. We monitored the recorded signals at the time that they were recorded to see if they were noise free and to see if they used the entire dynamic range of the recording system. In other words, to see that they were being recorded with the highest fidelity possible. We observed for each of those records that we had achieved that. We did no other analysis of the records at that time. Mr. CORNWELL. I would like to now show you JFK exhibit F-338. Dr. BARGER. This exhibit is an illustration of the test patterns, and it shows six of them. Mr. CORNWELL May we have JFK exhibit F-338 admitted into evidence, Mr. Chairman? Chairman STOKES. Without objection. [The information follows:] 57 JFK EXHIBIT F-338 58 Dr. BARGER. Here we show six echo patterns in alternate array. They were generated by Western Cartridge Co. ammunition, which is somewhat incorrectly labeled here as Winchester ammunition, and then Norma for test shots fired from the depository with the muzzle 2 feet behind the plane of the window fired at target No. 3, received on microphones 7, 8, and 9 in array 3, namely, halfway down Elm Street. Time is plotted on the horizontal scale. From here to here we have the total time span of 1 second. We have the intensity of sound in decibels plotted on the vertical scale in each of the six graphs. We see initially a very loud pair of impulses; if you look very closely, you see there are two of those. The first of those is the shock wave of the bullet passing overhead. The second of those is the reflection of the shock wave from the street just below the microphone. Then there are three rather distinct echoes and several others here that you can see if your eyes are very good. This type of graphical data is on an ultraviolet recording, which is hard to photograph, but here is the arrival of the muzzle blast. It comes later than the arrival of the shock wave because the bullet is supersonic. Here is an echo in this case from the Records Building, and here almost nine-tenths of a second later is the echo from the Post Office Annex which is across Dealey Plaza. Now when you repeat that shot in every way except using Norma ammunition instead of Winchester, you see the same pattern. If you look at it in great detail, you find that the spacing between the shock wave and the muzzle blast using the Western ammunition versus that with the Norma is 5 percent greater. In otherwords, the bullet is 5 percent faster, giving a shockwave that occurs 5 percent sooner than the muzzle blast. That is an inconsequential time difference to the matching process, and is certainly not evident when looking at these records just with the eye. The similarty between these pairs of patterns which differ, only in the types of ammunition that were used, is very great, thereby establishing that the substitution of Norma ammunition for Western was an acceptable one. As one looks down farther in the street, one sees that these patterns change somewhat. For example, the strength of the Post Office Annex echo is a little bit larger at microphone 8 than it is at microphone 7, as an example. Mr. CORNWELL Then, after determining that your test had gone well, that you got the type of data you were looking for, and that there was no substantial differences that would affect the vaildity of the test, depending on whether you used Norma or Western ammunition, what did you do next? Dr. BARGER. The next project then was to begin the comparison of the test patterns with the impulse patterns on the police tape. Let me describe the process of doing this now. We first divided the motorcycle tape into segments, each containing at least one of those patterns of impulses that we were testing for the possibility that they were caused by gunfire. We then matched each of these 432 echo patterns that are exemplified by that exhibit with each of those 6 segments of the tape. Those six segments that we analyzed comprised the entire part of 59 the record of the Dallas police tape that passed the six screening tests that I described. The procedure for conducting this match is a mathematic alone, and it is known as a correlation. The type of correlation that we used is a binary correlation, and this is a description of a fairly simple process, which I will now attempt to make entirely clear. The echo patterns were each examined to find the loudest echoes thereon, some patterns had only 5, others as many as 17. Any one echo that was loud enough to exceed the threshold of audibility was accepted. Then each of the six segments of the tape were examined, after having presented them in the same way, loudness in decibels on the vertical scale, and time on the horizontal scale. Those records were initially made at a horizontal scale of 16 inches equal to 1 second. Once those six segments of the tape had been thus prepared, they were similarly thresholded, and I will illustrate this more graphically in a minute, to determine all of the impulses on each that exceeded a threshold. They were then numbered, and their location in time was noted. Now the design of the test included the feature that each microphone was 18 feet from the next. It is possible that the motorcycle at any time was halfway between two microphones, so a microphone could at worst be 9 feet from the motorcycle if in fact there was a motorcycle present. That means that there is at least a 9-foot uncertainty in the location of the microphone with respect to where the motorcycle may have been at each time that we are examining. This was accommodated in our procedure by adding an uncertainty window 6 milliseconds on either side of each impulse found in the Dallas tape. In other words each impulse was considered to be 12 milliseconds wide, so as to include any echo received by a motorcycle that had been in fact anywhere it could have been with respect to the nearest microphone. The number of coincidences between impulses and echoes was the numerator, and the denominator was the square root of the product of the number of echoes by the number of impulses. If two patterns perfectly matched in this way, the cross-correlation coefficient that you obtained would be equal to unity. If they only matched at one point and at no other, it would be 0.1 or less. The bigger the value of the correlation coefficient, the better the match. Mr. CORNWELL. The closer, in other words, that the number, which would be in percentages, point something, approaches one, the better the match? Dr. BARGER.. That is correct. That was the procedure. Now once that was done, we had a big pailfull of 2,600 numbers, and we exhibited to ourselves then for the first time on the blackboard all of those numbers that were larger than a threshold value, 60 which was set at 0.6. I will describe the reason for that in a moment. From this time on, I will mostly talk about those matches that exceeded a correlation coefficient of 0.6. Mr. CORNWELL. I would like to show you JFK exhibit F-347, and ask you if you would tell us what that is. Dr. BARGER. This illustrates two types of data. Here are three test patterns. These three test patterns were generated by a shot from the depository with the muzzle 2 feet behind the plane of the window and fired at the target No. 1, which was located just at the head of Elm Street in a position previously described, and it was received by microphones 4, 5, and 6 in the second array position. Those microphones were on Houston near Elm, and we see in each of these that the first sound that arrived was the muzzle blast. There is no shock wave that precedes the muzzle blast, and that is to be expected because in this case the shot is fired in this direction, and the microphone is over here, and according to the first exhibit I showed, the shock wave would not be seen 90(deg)laterally. As you look at the arrival of the muzzle blast, you see that in each channel it occurs progressively later in time, so that if you connect the peaks, they slant. This is because channel 4 microphone is father away from the rifle than is the channel 5 and channel 6 microphone. However, if you look at these peaks out here near one second, these are the echoes from the Post Office Annex. As the microphone moves away from the location of the rifle, it is moving toward the Post Office Annex. Therefore, the echo in fact comes in sooner, so when you connect the dots signifying each of those echoes, they have a slope in this direction. One selects all of the significant impulses on these test patterns. We have placed dots on them. Some of the dots are obscured in these dark areas where the photographer has overexposed them, but nevertheless, they are there. We have connected all of those that we think are caused by the same echo-generating device by lines, to show how the time that that echo arrives is changing continuously as you move the position of the receiver. Up here is shown a portion, a segment, of the Dallas police tape that was also prepared at the same time scale, 16 inches equals a second with intensity vertical on the scale in decibels. The threshold has been made, and all of those impulses that exceeded have been identified and numbered, and the plus or minus 6 milliseconds acceptance regions have been marked, these to accommodate the uncertainty of the exact position of the motorcycle. I am prepared to show how this echo pattern matches the test pattern--and I knew I would probably forget which one it is that matches with it, but it is quite evident. If you tried to match this pattern with this shot, the significant impulses at this point would not in fact match with the significant impulses in this pattern, even though with this setting the echo from the Post Office Annex does. However, if you match it with the test impluse obtained at channel 5 which is a different place, then they match quite admirably in fact. If you count the dots signifying significant echoes in 61 the echo pattern with the marks signifying the significant impulses in the Dallas tape, you find there are 12 matches out of 17 possible impulses, and if you count these, 15 possible echoes. The cross correlation coefficient for that match is 0.75, above our threshold value of 0.6. Mr. CORNWELL. Given the amount of noise in the Dallas Police Department tape, would you expect that you would ever get a complete match, all 17 out of 17 in this case? Dr. BARGER. Many of the impulses on the tape, on the Dallas police tape, this segment of it in particular, that correspond to the total number that were above the threshold value of 17 are caused undoubtedly by nonacoustical events. Examples are the key transients that I described when I was showing the results of the spectrographic analysis. However, none of those impulses in this particular segment of the tape have been conclusively identified as being any of those. The noise from whatever its origin that is present in the police recording tape, there is demonstrably noise there, in addition to any impulses that may be caused by gunfire, those would rise up and compete with the impulses caused by gunfire and reduce the value of the correlation coefficient to some number less than one. Mr. CORNWELL So in spite of the fact that the correlation coefficient was not one, the match was not perfect, your words were that this was a quite adequate match. In other words it had a correlation coefficient which approximate done; is that correct? Dr. BARGER. Well, it was not possible to reach that judgment by looking at one alone. We looked at 2,600 of them, and reached our conclusions from that. This was to illustrate just one. Mr. CORNWELL Now I believe, Mr. Chairman, we forgot to ask that that last exhibit be admitted into evidence. May we do so at this time? Chairman STOKES. Without objection, it maybe entered into the evidence at this time. [The information follows:] 41-371 O - 79 - 5 Vol. 2 62 JFK EXHIBIT F-347 63 63 Mr. CORNWELL I would now like to direct your attention to JFK exhibit F-367, and for your assistance ask that F-337 and F-344 be placed up there simultaneously. Dr. BARGER. Yes. This one and this one have been introduced as evidence. This is new. Mr. CORNWELL. Would you tell us what F-367 is? Dr. BARGER. It is a list of those 15 matches that--of the 2,600 approximate matches we attempted--that did in fact exhibit a correlation coeffident higher than 0.6. Mr. CORNWELL. May we have JFK exhibit F-367 admitted into evidence, Mr. Chairman? Chairman STOKES. Without objection, it maybe entered into the evidence. [The information follows] JFK EXHIBIT F-367 Dr. BARGER. Very well. There are 15 descriptors here. Each one describes a case where an acoustical test pattern matched better than the threshold value of 0.6 with a segment of the Dallas tape. 64 The first situation where this occurred I will label with blue. There were four test patterns that corresponded with the segment of the tape that began at 137.7 seconds after the stuck button, with coefficient, correlation coefficient, larger than 0.6, and these are the four. I will note with a 1 that that is the first time in the tape that any of the test patterns correlated with any of the impulse patterns in the police tape with a score better than 0.6, and it occurred four times. Mr. CORNWELL. So at that point you are telling us that there is a segment of the Dallas police tape which very closely approximates or at least has a correlation coefficient of over 0.6 with respect to the various test shots? Dr. BARGER. Yes. This section may contain the sound of gunfire. Then going on down in the list, we have what I will label the second time, the second place on the Dallas tape where correlations or matches were achieved that were good enough to exceed the threshold value, and I will label that with red brackets to highlight it, and there were five of them. Then in the same way at a later time, around 145.15 seconds, in green, I will label and highlight the three test shot patterns that correlated with that part of the tape better than 0.6, and, finally, at 145 seconds--yellow is not the best, is it--well, the fourth part of the tape at 145.61 seconds had three different test patterns that achieved the correlation score greater than 0.6. Let me rummage through my briefcase and see if I can find another color. Black is the obvious choice. Now, a feature of a detection by a reciever that was designed to detect the possibility of otherwise subaudible events by using the threshold correlation procedure is that it can give threshold exceedences, the threshold having been 0.6, under two circumstances. One, it exceeds the threshold when it has correctly detected the event and the other is, it exceeds the threshold when it has incorrectly detected the event. The latter circumstance is called a false alarm.[Laughter.] It is the purpose of the rest of my testimony now to examine the question: Which, if any, are false alarms? Mr. CORNWELL. Before you do that, I take it that you took each of the four segments of the Dallas Police Department tape, which you have indicated with the numbers 1, 2, 3, and 4, and compared them with all of the test patterns, and what you have simply illustrated on the chart is a match very similar to the one that you showed us physically how you performed earlier with respect to a shot in the first time frame. Is that correct? Dr. BARGER. That is correct. Mr. CORNWELL. Then would you use the exhibits which are presently in place and tell us what that means in terms of the other diagrams as to the location of the microphones and the direction and location of the shots. Dr. BARGER. I can say a few preliminary things about that with these exhibits, a few preliminary things. The results suggest that there are detections at four different times of day. If the motorcycle were in Dealey Plaza, it would only be at one place at each of those times of day and would either be standing still or moving in some reasonable pattern. 65 The correlations achieved, or the matches achieved, at the first time when any matches were achieved are either at microphone 5 or 6 in the second - array position. There are four correlations there, so that at this time on the tape, we would tentatively estimate that the motorcycle was there. Mr. CORNWELL Let me show you at this point then JFK exhibit F-370, and ask you if you would tell us what that is. Could we put the two exhibits, the latest one, F-370, over next to the---- JFK EXHIBIT F-370 Dr. BARGER. This would best be in this position I think, thank you. We want to examine now the meaning of these detections that passed the threshold level to see if there is any reason to believe that they are not all false alarms, possibly. I will attempt it in this way. The first time all day that we saw any matches was at this time which I have labeled in blue, and, the indication is internally fairly 66 consistent, and it indicates that the location of the microphone at that time is between microphones 5 and 6. So I put a blue dot there because that location was derived from the matches made at the first time of day at which any matches were made, and then I will begin to construct a plot. It would be best if I could draw this for you if you didn't see what is already on there before I start, but if you will attempt to follow the pointer, I am going to plot here time of day with zero representing the time that this first occurrence was observed, and I am going to plot the distance down the motorcade route along the vertical scale as measured from the portion of the motorcycle at that time. In otherwords, 10 feet down the motorcade route, 20, 30, 40, 50, all the way down to here would be 250 feet. I will signify that I mean zero time and zero distance here by that blue circle. Congressman FITHIAN, will you let me get away with that? Shall I proceed? Very well. At the second time, 1.6 seconds later, when there were correlations that did in fact exceed the threshold, which I have labeled red, we plot the position of each of the microphones that are correlating with that sound on the tape. Some of them were up the street. So I will simply mark in red the time on this scale that corresponds to this time of this pattern, but I can't make a nice, little circle yet because they are all over the place. There must be some false alarms in there. All right now, at the third time we have green as an indication. Green occurs at this time 7 1/2 seconds after the time of the first one, which was indicated by blue. At the time of the green, the green part of the Dallas tape, we had three detections, three matches--one here, one here, one here. All those are not all in the same place and the motorcycle can only be at one place at the green time, as well as it can be only at one place at any other time, so there is a bit of ambiguity there, but let's press on. At the next time, which is one-half a second later, which would be indicated by the black time, 8 seconds after the first one, we notice that the portion of the microphone that gathered the test pattern that gave the correlation that passed the threshold was here, here, and here. All right, now I have explained where those 15 dots came from. Those 15 dots represent these 15 correlations that passed the threshold of 0.6, and they are illustrated as a function of the time when they occurred and the position down the street where the microphone was that picked up the test pattern that gave the correlations. Mr. CORNWELL. May we have JFK exhibit F-370 entered into the record? Chairman STOKES. Without objection, so ordered. 67 Dr. BARGER. Now, we look at these and immediately see the motorcycle can't be at all these places, but there is a high degree of order in this diagram. The negative hypothesis would be that the motorcycle was not in Dealey Plaza. If that were true, then this scale that describes the distance down the street of the motorcade would be meaningless in the data, and the data would occur in time and in distance down the street at random. But the eye can see that they tend to follow a sloping line. It can particularly see that because of these prior lines that I drew in. There is a lot of order in the occurrence of these 15 correlations. Now, how much order? Well, if one segments the position of microphones along the street into four bins, or four compartments, and segments the time at which they occurred into the four compartments that are naturally the four compartments into which the data are segmented, then one can question what is the likelihood that this ordered pattern could have occurred by chance. In other words was it likely this pattern would have occurred if the motorcycle wasn't there. There is a test for that sort of thing, and it is called the Chi square test. If you segment the data into four times and four places, as I have done, it is a test done with nine degrees of freedom. The Chi squared, value, which is a measure of order liness, is 17 1/2. For those of you that have tables of the Chi square distribution, the meaning of that number is this much order would occur only 5 times out of 100 if this was caused by chance. In other words if the motorcycle was not there and so the data were distributed at random, there is only a 5-percent chance that that would have occurred. This much order in the data suggests there is a 95-percent likelihood that the motorcycle was moving in the motorcade. That is just about at the level of statistical significance that gives a person confidence that there are correct detections in the data. On the other hand, there are demonstrably also false alarms. This can be seen by observing that if some of those correlations in fact, indicate the position of the motorcycle, then some of them must be wrong because the motorcycle can't be in two places at once. Mr. Cornwell, I could proceed with what I am doing now or we could put up those other three. I think it might be easier if I proceed. Mr. CORNWELL. Go right ahead and proceed. Dr. BARGER. It is now the task of the committee and me to try to identify the best we can which of these detections are false alarms and which ones are not. We have a good deal of confidence that many of them are not. Now, in order that the motorcycle could achieve this position 130 feet down the street from the blue position in the 1.6 seconds, it would have to go 55 miles an hour. There is no evidence to indicate that it did that, and so this particular detection is labeled a false alarm. It couldn't be true. It leaked through because we lowered our threshold of detection to the point where we had enough correlations so we could be reason- 68 ably certain that the true answers would emerge. We wouldn't want to shut them out. Now, if you assume that the trajectory of the motorcycle is from the blue position, at which we can be reasonably confident, through these, the slope of that line is 11 miles an hour. That is approximately the speed of the motorcade. If one said, perhaps these are false alarms and that is the correct trajectory of the motorcade, in that case the motorcade would be going 18 miles per hour approximately. It would be going from behind the limousine---I mean, 120 feet behind the limousine and drawing close to it. I had better explain what I mean by that right now. If we assume that one of these last two occurrences represents the so-called head shot, then we know at that time where the limousine was. It was at frame 313. Frame 313 is 250 feet down the street from the blue dot, so 250 feet at that time of occurrence is here, so this must be where the limousine was at that time. It was going at about 11 miles an hour as determined by photographic evidence. If one plots back at 11 miles an hour, one finds at the time of the first occurrence the limousine was somewhere 120 feet ahead of the motorcycle, which would have put it right there. Now, again, I am examining the question about whether these three or these three are candidates for false alarms. If these three seconds prior to the first impulsive pattern that we originally suspected could be caused by gunfire. There was no obvious explanation for that, until one sees that at that time the motorcycle was just beginning a 110(deg) turn, and on the inside track apparently, and he would therefore have to slow down to execute the turn. Now, it was further observed that the motorcycle sound stayed diminished after the turn. It did not increase to the level that it had formerly had. Therefore, it would seem that it couldn't have increased speed, which it would have had to do to achieve this position in 8 seconds. If on the other hand, it had continued at the same speed of the motorcade, it would have achieved this position in that time. There is, therefore, the diminished sound of the motorcycle that indicates that these are false alarms. Now, that is an example of the kind of corroborating or disqualifying evidence that is of nonacoustical origin. We are inferring that the motorcycle didn't speed up because the noise didn't increase, this allows us to identify as false alarms some of these correlations we have accepted by lowering the threshold sufficiently to catch the correct detections. In other words, indications of detection that were accepted by the test, but that were shown by other reasons not to be possible, are therefore, found to be false alarms. As a result of that judgment, the estimate of the motorcycle position at the time of the second impulse the red one, would be there, which is right there, and the estimated position then of the 69 motorcycle at the time of the third occurrence, which is here, is right there. I lost my graphical symbolism a little, and that is fight there, and at the time of the last segment labeled No. 4, which at this time we would estimate it to be half way between those two right there, and that is there, 120 feet behind the limousine at the time of the head shot, if in fact these impulses represent the sound of the head shot. There is the possibility of labeling one of these four threshold crossings as a potential false alarm because it involves firing from this place at this target at the time that the limousine was here. That is almost 180 (deg) out. It is inconceivable that anyone would do that, and on that basis one of these can be judged a false alarm. The fact that some of those are thought to be correct detections was illustrated by all of the order in the data, as I explained earlier. Mr. CORNWELL. Dr. Barger, does that conclude your description of the analysis that you performed? Dr. BARGER. Yes, it does. Mr. CORNWELL. Let me then ask you in sum, is it fair and accurate to state that after all of the analysis there is evidence of four shots on the Dallas Police Department tape, and that the acoustical sounds that may represent those shots are spaced as follows: between the first and second approximately 1.6 seconds, between the second and third approximately 5.9 seconds, and between the third and fourth approximately 0.5 of a second? Dr. BARGER. Yes, that is a possible conclusion. Mr. CORNWELL. I have no further questions. Thank you. Chairman STOKES. Thank you very much. Doctor. I would just like to say you are a fascinating teacher. I am just glad I don't have to take a test on what you have taught us here, today. May I consult with the committee for just a moment regarding recessing at this time. At this time the committee will recess until 1:30 p.m. this afternoon. [Whereupon, at 12:15 p.m., the committee recessed, to reconvene at l:30 p.m., the same day. AFTERNOON SESSION Chairman STOKES. The committee will come to order. The procedure this afternoon will be for the Chair to, first, recognize the gentleman from Indiana, Mr. Fithian, who will be permitted to consume such time as he may need in order to fully and extensively question the witness. After that, the Chair will operate under the 5-minute rule as to other members of the committee. The Chair at this time recognizes the gentleman from Indiana, Mr. Fithian. Mr. FITHIAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Dr. Barger, we want to thank you for your excellent, very technical, and very complete testimony this morning, And as you must be 70 aware, this poses as very serious evidence for us in that it does not corroborate some other evidence that we have. And I want to go back now, so that I am clear and others in the room are clear, as to just what it was that you set out to ascertain by the tests that you ran in Dallas when you went back and sort of recreated the shot pattern. What was it that you were specifically trying to do? TESTIMONY OF JAMES E. BARGER--Resumed Dr. BARGER. Congressman Fithian, the first thing that we sought to do was to determine if there were any sounds of gunfire in Dealey Plaza that were recorded on that tape. In other words, we were seeking to determine if the motorcycle, whose stuck transmitter was transmitting sound, was in fact in Dealey Plaza. Mr. FITHIAN. So you are trying to actually locate the motorcycle itself ? Dr. BARGER. It became necessary, first, to determine if the motorcycle was in Dealey Plaza, and then to locate it there in. Mr. FITHIAN. And as to its location, correct me if I am wrong, you set your microphones 10 feet apart? Dr. BARGER. That is correct. Mr. FITHIAN. And you did this from the beginning of the turn on to Houston, down Houston to the turn on Elm Street, and down Elm Street, at least as far as where the Zapruder film showed, the head shot to the President? Dr. BARGER. That is correct. Mr. FITHIAN. Now does this mean, to those of us who are laymen, that once you locate a match of echo patterns, you have physically located the motorcycle to somewhere within that 18-foot stretch? Dr. BARGER. That is correct. The echo patterns depend for their structure on the location of the microphone that receives the sound. We sought matches of the echo patterns that were sufficiently precise to represent a motorcycle microphone located within approximately 9 feet of each of the microphones. Mr. FITHIAN. And then you presumed that the motorcycle was moving at the speed of the motorcade, or roughly that? Dr. BARGER. We presumed nothing about the location of the motorcycle or its speed or even direction of motion. The matches were made without any presumption what so ever about the position of the motorcycle, in fact, of course, without any knowledge that the motorcycle was even there. After having made the matches, however, the position, I should say, the location of the microphones through which we found matches did in fact progress down the motorcade route at the times that the four subsequent periods on the tape showed matches. And as I indicated previously, the locations of the microphones where the matches were found at the four different times were moving down the motorcade route at approximately 11 miles an hour. Mr. FITHIAN. And the number of microphones you used was determined by what? By the uncertainty of where or if the motorcycle was there? Dr. BARGER. We started out with no assumption about where the motorcycle was , other than the fact that it was presumed to be on the street along the motorcade route. Therefore, we wished to put 71 microphones all along the route in Dealey Plaza. It was very difficult for us to record through more than 12 microphones at one time, and so in fact we did record through only 12 microphones at one time. It was rather time consuming to conduct the full round of test shots considering the need for observing safety precautions and the like. And so in order to conduct the entire test within a morning, we calculated that about 36 microphone locations could be accommodated and this indicated an 18-foot spacing. The 18-foot spacing was judged adequate because it would place the motorcycle no more than 9 feet from the nearest microphone. That dimension is about half the width of the street. So if we put the microphone in the center of the street, even though the motorcycle was at the curb, we would be within that 9 feet. The time it takes sound to travel 9 feet is 9 milliseconds. That is a fairly short period of time. We judged that small uncertainty, 9 milliseconds, to be adequately small compared with the total time over which the echoes would arrive, that being almost a thousand milliseconds, or 1 second. That is the way that we decided upon the 18-foot spacing, the desire to have a small enough error, possible error, due to uncertainty of the true motorcycle location and the desire not to conduct the test all day long. Mr. FITHIAN. Then are you satisfied that the fixes, if we can use that term, of the motorcycle that you came up with, are within 8 to 10 feet, or something not much greater than half the distance between one microphone and another? Dr. BARGER. Yes, yes, I am satisfied that the 18 - foot spacing was not too coarse. Mr. FITHIAN. Now to the layman, it would seem that if you are going to recreate a test, that you might have wanted to use instead of the most modern microphone equipment, you might have wanted to use, as nearly as you could find, microphones and transmitters identical to those which you believed to have been on the original motorcycle. And I would like some explanation as to why you chose not to use the motorcycle microphone, which you have indicated at one point in your testimony you had indeed used, from the Massachusetts police. Evidently that kind of a microphone or transmitter is available. Why then did you use a more sophisticated system of microphones? Dr. BARGER. A more sophisticated system? Mr. FITHIAN. Yes, more sophisticated than obviously was on the stuck transmitter. Dr. BARGER. Why did we use the more sophisticated? Mr. FITHIAN. Why did you? Dr. BARGER. There are two reasons. In the first place, as I showed, the radio distorts and limits the amplitude of loud sounds. Each radio does that in detail in a different way. We weren't seeking to look at the wave form of each sound echo, only the time at which it occurred. The radio does not distort the time at which it occurs, nor does the more sophisticated equipment that we used. The more sophisticated equipment that we used is known to be reliable and not to fail in times of stress in the middle of a sensitive test. Old motorcycle radios from those earlier days are known not to be very reliable, nor are they to be found in the 72 quantities that we required. Therefore we selected a system that would give us equivalent data but more reliably. Mr. FITHIAN. So that I understand now, the data that you were really looking for was not dependent upon the amplitude or the height of the blip, or what ever you want to call it, greater than a certain amount which would help you identify it. Rather you were trying to locate it along the time line? Dr. BARGER. Correct. That is absolutely correct. Mr. FITHIAN. As I understand it, Mr. Chairman, this committee employed two other specialists that Mr. Cornwell referred to this morning, Mark Weiss and Ernest Aschkenasy, and you went over the plan of the test with them; is that correct? Dr. BARGER. That is correct. Mr. FITHIAN. Did they concur in the layout of the array of microphones, the type of microphones? In other words, did they concur in your proposed test plan? Dr. BARGER. They did. Mr. FITHIAN. Tell me then something about the difference in the status of the science of acoutics from 1964, when presumably this tape was inexistence and could have been analyzed and 1978 when you analyzed it, 1977-78 when you analyzed it, not in great specificity. But what are the grand changes that have taken place in that 14-year period? Dr. BARGER. Well, there are two. First, the adaptive filter that we used to reduce the level of the motorcycle noise on the tape was a procedure that was not then, had not then, been worked out. It was not known. Second, the method we used to detect for the possibility, to search for the possibility of sounds, is generally called a matched filter or a matched detector. The theory of that device, that method of seeking the presence of suspected signals in loud noise, was developed principally I believe by the radar community during World War II. It was therefore known in 1963 to people who study the process of detecting expected signals imbedded in loud noise. The community that shared that knowledge in 1963 was not as wide as it is now. I don't believe I knew about it then. Mr. FITHIAN. But the filtering process that you used came in, I think you said this morning, in 1968 to 1970; is that correct? Dr. BARGER. Well, probably more like 1966 to 1968, but, that is correct. Mr. FITHIAN. Now some of the terms you used this morning I am sure must be every day terms to you, but I am not sure all of us followed those. One of the key terms seemed to be "impulsive events" or "sequence of impulsive events" or something to that effect. What does that term mean, to those of us who don't get along very well with this science? Dr. BARGER. I used the term 'impulsive event" to describe the brief, loud bursts of noise that appeared on the Dallas police tape. Now when I listened to the tape, you hear spits and stutters and pops. Those would all be descriptors of impulsive acoustical events. When you look at the waveform as presented on the oscillographic records that I showed, then the transient events are characterized 73 by short intervals of time in which the loudness of a sound is intense, so it looks like blips or peaks in the amplitude record. Mr. FITHIAN. And another term that was used, I think, as you took that concept and tried to transfer it to the visual, was spectrographic analysis of this transient event. I take it that is that chart that you put upon the wall this morning? Dr. BARGER. Yes, I did put--we did have an exhibit that was a spectrographic analysis of a segment of the tape recording; that is correct. Would you like me to discuss that briefly? Mr. FITHIAN. I just wanted to make sure my understanding was correct, and, that is, that the spectrographic analysis is a sort of a visual playout of this grassy looking material that is blips and depressions. Dr. BARGER. Yes; the spectrogram itself is a visual description of the tonal content frequency content, pitch content of sound as a function of time. In other words, if a person was raising his voice like that, you would see a diagonal line on the spectrogram, indicating as time progressed, the pitch of the sound was rising. Mr. FITHIAN. And now the adaptive filtering you used, do I understand that correctly, that this is the process of filtering out noises and things that you don't want to measure? Dr. BARGER. The adaptive filtering process, which I characterized as a Widrow-type adaptive filter was used because it is effective in reducing repetitive noises, not impulsive noises, but repetitive ones. If you listen to a motorcycle, basically you hear the sounds of the cylinders firing, and they fire at idle for that motorcycle about once every 140 milliseconds. So, therefore, the noise as generated by that motor cycle has a tendency to resemble itself every 140 milliseconds later. The adaptive filter studies that noise, determines what is expected to occur in the future, subtracts that out from the data that is just coming in, and leaves you with the absence of that repetitive noise. But if you are looking for transient events or impulses about which the filter could have no prior knowledge, because they only occur once, then that filter leaves you with those transients more clearly observable. The noises, in other words, the repetitive noise that was masking those transients is thus reduced. Mr. FITHIAN. And one final sort of terminology question. You used the term "match filter technique" "matching filter techniques" Dr. BARGER. Yes. Mr. FITHIAN. [continuing].And that means what? Dr. BARGER. That means that you have in your--you expect to receive one of many kinds of signals. By "many kinds,"I mean a signal in this case that has a series of impulses that occur in a definite sequence, like, let's say, the first one occurs at a particular time, the second one perhaps 3 milliseconds later, the third one maybe 15, the fourth one 27, the fifth one 12 1/2 after that, and so on, a definte sequence of impulses. We went to Dallas to find out what the sequence of impulses would be that would be generated by Dealey Plaza if a gun was fired. 74 Having found out what that sequence of impulses is, you then go through the tape in question and look for sequences of impulses that match it. When you find one that matches it, you say aha, at that time something occurred that generated a pattern of transient events that just matches what we did in Dealey Plaza, and when that occurs, you judge that you have made a detection. You have identified a similar source of noise. The word "matched filter" is a technically correct or often used form, and the use of the word "match"is fairly self-evident, I believe. Mr. FITHIAN. Now I am sure there must have been a reason for your lengthy analysis of this bell tone. I am not sure that--I guess my question is why did you look for and analyze and worry about the bell tone, since we were looking for some kind of rifle shots or pistol shots or whatever? Dr. BARGER. There are two reasons. First, we wanted to see if in fact there were any sounds on the tape that were caused by acoustical signals such as a bell would generate. We found that the sound that resembled a bell was a bell. Second, we hoped to establish, we hoped to learn, where that bell really was and had thought if we could find it, we would then know where at least one microphone was that was transmitting on channel 1 at that time. Mr. FITHIAN. So, you were trying to verify that there were transmittals on that tape? Dr. BARGER. That there were acoustical events as opposed to what might be called microphonics. In other words, as you take a radio transmitter and just kick it around and shake it, as a motorcycle might do, particularly if the radio were broken, then it would transmit signals that wouldn't have any bearing due to sounds. We just wanted to see if there were sounds on there. Mr. FITHIAN. Now, I am not sure, counsel, what the exhibit numbers are, but I am interested in the way you went about locating the targets; that is, physically locating the targets that you were going to fire at. I understand why you selected the two points from which you fired, but could you put up the three or four photographs of Dealey Plaza, F-367 and F-377? Mr. CORNWELL. F-337 and F-344, I believe. Mr. FITHIAN. While they are doing that, let me ask you sort of the central question. Is it your conclusion that you proved that there were four shots? Dr. BARGER. No. Mr. FITHIAN. With regard to the groupings of shots what do you prove then? Dr. BARGER. As regards the grouping of the shots, we demonstrated with high confidence that if there are four shots, we demonstrated the times at which they occurred, and the intervals between them were described by Mr. Cornwell, 1.6 seconds, was it 5.9, and 0.5. Mr. FITHIAN. Would you repeat that again, please? Dr. BARGER. Yes. Mr. FITHIAN. The distance, the time frame between the first and the second shot is what? Dr. BARGER. 1.6 seconds. 75 Mr. FITHIAN. And between the second and what you perceived to be a possible third shot? Dr. BARGER. 5.9. Mr. FITHIAN. And between the possible third and the possible fourth shot? Dr. BARGER. 0.5. Mr. FITHIAN. 0.5? Dr. BARGER. 0.5, one-half second. Mr. FITHIAN. One-half second. So what you are saying, Doctor, is that if there were four shots fired, they came at those intervals? Dr. BARGER. Yes. Mr. FITHIAN. And let's hypothesize for a minute. If there were only three shots fired, how do you account for the disturbance that you find at I guess it would be 5.9 after the first shot--after the second shot, I am sorry. Dr. BARGER. I don't have the best exhibit in front of me to answer that, but let me do it without the first time. Of the 15 detections that our matching process achieved, 10 of them cannot be discounted as false alarms. It would be necessary for at least three of those to be correct detections, to have established the coherence in the data that led to our conclusion that the microphone was in fact in Dealey Plaza. It is therefore likely that somewhere between 3 and 6 of the remaining 10 are also false alarm. Therefore, anyone--- Mr. FITHIAN. May I interrupt just a moment? Dr. BARGER. Yes, of course. Mr. FITHIAN. I think the staff was putting up the right pictures. I wanted the big pictures of Dealey Plaza. I think there are three or four of them altogether. You had three of them out just a moment ago. Go ahead, Doctor. Dr. BARGER. Therefore, it would not be unreasonable to expect that approximately 5 of the remaining 10 correlations were also false alarms. That would indicate that about one-half of the detections that I did not previously indicate to be false alarms, about one-half the remaining 10, are false alarms. This would indicate that the probability that each one is a correct detection is about one-half. Mr. FITHIAN. I am going to return to this a little bit later. I am going to put those microphone images up there and we are going to go through that time frame because it is very important to me, but right now I want to try to establish the location of the targets. Now, I am not at all interested in the charts fight at the moment, I just want the pictures, the two pictures you have plus another one that shows some interstate signs with targets behind them. That is the particular one I want. [Exhibits F-339, F-340, F-341, and F-342 were displayed.] Dr. BARGER. Well, it is there. Mr. FITHIAN. Yes, OK. Set it up on the upper easel if you will. Thank you. Now, could you put on your Lavalier microphone, Doctor, and I would like for you to locate for us again the locations of the targets that they fired at. Dr. BARGER. Yes; the target that was illustrated as target location No. list his pile of sandbags right here. 76 Mr. FITHIAN. And let me just make sure my optical illusion isn't getting away from me. That is between the Texas School Book Depository window on the left and the interstate signs overhead, is that correct? Dr. BARGER. This picture is taken from the window adjacent to the window from which Oswald is thought to have fired, so it is taken from the depository. Mr. FITHIAN. So that one you are pointing at is up the hill, if you will. It is located in the road prior--if you are going toward the underpass--prior to arriving at the interstate signs, the first target that you just had pointed at down here, just right there. Dr. BARGER. Yes. Mr. FITHIAN. That is physically before you get to the interstate signs. Dr. BARGER. These signs? Mr. FITHIAN. Yes. Dr. BARGER. Well, it is physically just before them, that is correct. Mr. FITHIAN. And the second target is where? Dr. BARGER. The second target is hiding behind the trees right at that point. Mr. FITHIAN. The third target is the one down the road? Dr. BARGER. That is the third target. Mr. FITHIAN. Now, in the location of targets, are those, as nearly as you can compute from the Zapruder film or otherwise, the exact location of the President and Governor Connally in the limousine? Dr. BARGER. No; with regard to target No. 3, which was positioned to be at the same place as the limousine in frame 313, it was put in that place as well as we could determine it. Mr. FITHIAN. And is target No. 1 in the same location that you presumed the first shot was fired? Dr. BARGER. Of course, I don't know exactly where the limousine was when the first shot was fired. Mr. FITHIAN. I guess basically I am asking you why did you locate the target there? Dr. BARGER. As I recall, we sought to place the first target at about the position of the limousine, at about frame 158-160. The reason for that was that the preliminary screening that I described earlier of the impulses on the tape, indicated that if the first pattern of impulses that could be seen occurred prior to frame 313 by enough time to place it back at about frame 158. That is why we tried to position the target at that place. Mr. FITHIAN. Is target No. 2--which doesn't really show up from here, but you pointed to it--is that at as nearly an accurate location as possible? Dr. BARGER. May I ask Mr. Cornwell a question? Mr. FITHIAN. Yes. Dr. BARGER. I forget right now which Zapruder frame we tried to position target No. 2 at. Mr. CORNWELL. We initially attempted to place it in the vicinity of 190, which would have been slightly further down the street from where it ultimately ended up, but the tree size is different today than it was in 1963, and the signs over the street which are in that area were of course not there in 1963, so we had to simply 77 find the shortest point from the 190 frame that we could still shoot at sandbags. It was moved, as I recall---- Dr. BARGER. We were striving for the location of the target at the position of the limousine in frame 190, which was obscured by the new growth of the tree, and so we moved it to that position to make it--- Mr. FITHIAN. Doctor. the reason that I am going into this is that in studying the data last night from your research, and going over what you find as possible matches and then eliminating those which you believe to be false signals, there seemed a dirth of any matches with the second target in your data. The question is whether or not there is anything--we have already eliminated the new hotel building several blocks away as having been in any way altering the echo pattern. I am curious to know whether or not the location of that target, the interstate signs, the firing direction or anything like that would tend to give us the kind of data that we seem to have on target No. 2. Dr. BARGER. Three of the matches were achieved for test patterns obtained by firing at target No. 2. I wouldn't describe that as a dirth, that is to say, three out of 15 would represent. Mr. FITHIAN. But if I may come back to this a little bit later, if you want to remember the point and we will take it up then. If I remember in going through the ones that you eliminate as false alarms, that reduces any match to target No. 2 either to one or to zero, I am not positive, but we will come back to that. I just was curious to know whether the intrusion of the interstate signs into the whole acoustical pattern does anything to the results you get. Dr. BARGER. Yes; the target No. 2 was responsible for at least two false alarms. Let me just check this a moment and make sure. Yes, it contributed false alarms in each case. There was a detection made at the second time interval when a shot was fired at target No. 2, and that one was eliminated because it was detected at microphone No. 5 in the third army position, and that was the one that would have required a 55-mile-an-hour speed of the motorcycle to achieve, and so that was labeled as a false alarm. Target No. 2 contributed a false alarm here, which was one of the three detections made at the third time segment. That too is ruled out because of improbable motorcycle speed required to achieve that position at microphone No. 7 at the time of the third group of matches. And finally, a shot at target location No. 2, contributed a false alarm in the fourth pattern, that one having been identified as a false alarm by the improbable motion of the motorcycle required to achieve it, so that is correct. The three detections that were achieved from test patterns obtained by shooting at target No. 2 appear to be false alarms. Mr. FITHIAN. What impact, if any, did the firing of the bullet from the school depository window between the two interstate signs, what impact would that have in altering the data, if any? Dr. BARGER. The presence of a structure such as this would have been highly irrelevant to the tests had it been over here. Mr. FITHIAN. You say "highly relevant"? Dr. BARGER. Irrelevant. 78 Mr. FITHIAN. Irrelevant. Dr. BARGER. Had it been over here. The fact that the trajectory of the bullet missed that sign by only a few feet indicates that, as the shock wave which is radiated from the bullet as it passes would be in fact scattered by those signs, generating a new source of sound at that point. Mr. FITHIAN. And so then you really couldn't expect to get a match up; is that what you are saying? Dr. BARGER. That would introduce additional echoes in the test pattern that would not have---- Mr. FITHIAN. Let me make sure I am correct. If you introduce additional echoes or if you get additional echoes anywhere that don't match up, that reduces the probability, re duces it from eight to seven or seven to six or six to five or whatever. Dr. BARGER. It reduces the probability of detection and it in- creases the likelihood of a false alarm. Mr. FITHIAN. Thank you. Now I also looked at the pattern of shooting and noticed that you did not have as many shots from the grassy knoll toward No. 2 as at the other targets. I think No. 1 and No. 2, if I am not mistaken. Were there any reasons why you didn't have a full round of firing? Dr. BARGER. Yes; I think you are referring to the fact that we did not fire at target No. l from the knoll. Mr. FITHIAN. I am sorry, I said two. I mean tone. Dr. BARGER. Yes. Mr. FITHIAN, Yes. Dr. BARGER. That is correct. When we were setting up the locations of them microphones and the rifles and soon, we observed that target No. 1 was directly between the rifle on the knoll and the spectators that had been positioned behind a barricade on Elm Street, and it was judged entirely inappropriate to attempt that shot. Mr. FITHIAN. Now there is one other question I need to ask about what is up on the board there on the easel. When we visited Dallas, when the committee visited Dallas, and we inspected the Texas School Book Depository, we were told that, at the time that they picked up the shells, the empty cartridges on the sixth floor near the corner, I believe it would be about where the gentleman is standing or in that area, that the area was physically cased in by boxes, not quite entirely, but nearly so, and that some writers have described this as the snipers nest, et cetera. But in any event, to get to the acoustics of it, would those stack of boxes in the depository right around where allegedly the shots were fired have any significant impact on the echo pattern that you could expect to get outside? Dr. BARGER. They would not have a significant impact on the matches performed with the echo patterns. The reason is they would introduce into the echo patterns additional signals which are reflected from the boxes you describe that occur at a time later than the muzzle blast. By the time it takes the sound to go from the muzzle to those boxes and back out the window, that amount of 79 time would be less than 12 milliseconds, if those boxes were within 6 feet of the rifle. And we have, as I described, broadened the width in time of each impulse on the motorcycle tape by 12 milliseconds to accommodate the uncertainty of microphone position relative to the motorcycle. And the broadening of the acceptance time for each impulse in the motorcycle tape solves the uncertainty caused by the lack of precise microphone location, since we didn't know where the motorcycle was. It also solves the problem that you just described. Mr. FITHIAN. Let me see if I understand that now. What you are saying is because the little elliptical bins that you put over these blips-- I don't use very scientific language here-- but that you put over these blips in the spectrograph because they accommodated up to, what did you say, 6 feet on either side? Dr. BARGER. Yes, 12 in total. Mr. FITHIAN. Twelve feet total, that the boxes in order to have been in anyway effective would have had to have been closer? In other words, your accommodation, your allowance, took in any allowance for the boxes being there or not being there? Dr. BARGER. Yes, providing those boxes were within 6 feet of the muzzle. If they were significantly farther than that, then the echo coming from them and trying to get back out of the window and there by becoming relevant to the test pattern would be so weakened so that it wouldn't have had any significance either. Mr. FITHIAN. For practical matters, you are saying it doesn't make any difference whether you stack up boxes when you do the test firing or not? Dr. BARGER. Absolutely. Mr. FITHIAN. Thank you. Let the record show that the question pertained to JFK exhibit F-342, the picture of the marksman. Now one thing that has been bothering me this morning is the possibility that since more than one radio could be transmitting on that channel 1 that the stuck microphone was on, that indeed we might have been picking up some sounds from somewhere out of Dealey Plaza or somewhere else by some microphone other than the stuck microphone, since I believe you said that the bell tone was off outside. The bell tone did not come in over this particular microphone---- Dr. BARGER. That is right. Mr. FITHIAN [continuing]. To anyway that we could locate. Then why couldn't we hypothesize that perhaps the third or the fourth shot or the first or the second shot or some other shot might indeed have been picked up, that kind of a sound might in deed have been picked up by some other radio transmitter being keyed somewhere else other than Dealey Plaza? Dr. BARGER. Yes; we did establish, particularly with the spectrograms, that other microphones were keying in particularly at the times, the later two times, according to time three in green and four in black on that exhibit. And so during the time when those other radios were transmitting, sounds from their microphones would be expected to also appear in the tape recording, and, therefore, in a pattern of impulses was generated by some mechanism at 80 the location of the other microphone, then that pattern too would appear on the recorded sound. However, these patterns were quite complex. they contained no fewer than 10 echos, as I recall, spread over total times no less than about half a minute--let me see now, half a second--and the interval of time between each of these 10 echoes over this whole period of time, half a second or more, is a very intricate pattern. The likelihood that some other mechanism that would generate a similar pattern that would match with the test patterns is extremely remote. Mr. FITHIAN. And if one of the other microphones were on one of the other motorcycles in Dealey Plaza what then? Dr. BARGER. If another motorcycle in Dealey Plaza keyed in at that time, you would have a test pattern, if you will, that is to say, you would have the sound of gunfire on that one too. If it was sufficiently noise free that our detection process caught it, it would have shown a high value of correlation in the match and would have been marked as a detection. Mr. FITHIAN. But it would have come the same time frame, though, if it were a shot in Dealey Plaza; is that correct? Dr. BARGER. That is correct. Mr. FITHIAN. And so the only thing that would be somehow altered would be the location of the motorcycle. Dr. BARGER. That is correct. Mr. FITHIAN. So what you are saying is that the only way you could have gotten the pattern that matched is if over some other transmitter that was not in Dealey Plaza to get those 10 or 15 or how ever many echo patterns matched up, there would have had to be a configuration somewhere else very much like Dealey Plaza. The transmitter would have had to have been keyed at exactly the right time, and then you would have had this--- Dr. BARGER. That is correct. Mr. FITHIAN. How would you classify that; very unlikely, impossible, remote? Dr. BARGER. Extremely unlikely. Mr. FITHIAN. When you went to Dealey Plaza, you expected a certain approximation or a certain number of impulses. In general now, not referring to anything specific, but your general conclusion, did you get the approximate number of impulses that you anticipated? Dr. BARGER. Yes. with the term you used, "correlation coefficient," when you got those. Would the correlation coefficient be altered if the motorcycle is not at the exact location of the test microphone? In other words, you talked about a correlation coefficient of 0.8 or 0.7, 0.75, 0.6. Would that have been altered if the location of the microphone 81 correlation occurring if you by chance did not have the microphone in exactly the right place. If you insisted that those impulses line up with those echoes precisely, you would have to have the motorcycle just where the microphone was. We didn't have that many microphones or that much time, and so we used, as I said, the 18 foot spacing of microphones. In order to prevent a loss, a significant loss of correlation, because of the uncertainty with respect to the location of the motorcycle and the microphone, we accepted anything that came within 6 milliseconds as a match. Now let me explain where 6 milliseconds came from. I was trying to guard against low values of correlation, and therefore loss of information, just because I happened to miss the location of the motorcycle, but I couldn't accept as a match echoes and impulses that were half a second apart because then I would accept everything, so it is necessary to find a medium ground. Now here is how that was done. In the case where the microphone and the reflect or that is causing the echo and the source are all in one line, then the 9-foot uncertainty that I had with the 18 foot spacing, plus or minus 9 feet, would generate a plus or minus 9-millisecond uncertainty in the location of the echo. Now it is also true that if the sound that generates the echo that I am interested in is arriving perpendicularly to the line connecting the microphone and the possible place of the motorcycle, then that uncertainty is of no consequence because it would arrive at both of the two places at the same time. So the error caused by this phenomenon varies between zero and 9 milliseconds. So mathematically we said the arrival of these echo sounds from each direction is equally likely, and we determined an average of the error that would be introduced by a 9-foot uncertainty, and it was 6 milliseconds. This is not a linear average. That would have given 4 1/2, but there is a cosine involved in this, and so the 6-millisecond uncertainty was arrived at in that way, and it was designed to minimize the loss of correlation due to uncertainty in the microphone location. However, it won't work perfectly because in those cases where the error is actually 9 milliseconds, when the echo happens to be coming in in the same direction as the line connecting the motorcycle and microphone, then it will cause a lack, a loss of correlation. So the answer to your question is there is a slight loss in correlation but it is not as large as it would have been if we had not used the plus or minus 6-millisecond window. Mr. FITHIAN. Staying with the loss of correlation, because some of us are bothered when you match up a shot pattern that we know happened, and you can't match up all the 12 blips or the 15 blips or whatever, here and there, what you have just said is that some of them might be attributable to the fact that the motorcycle was outside by 3 feet or whatever. In other words, you might get a reduction in the correlation coefficient because the motorcycle is just beyond your tolerance level. Second---- Dr. BARGER. That is right. 82 Mr. FITHIAN. Would you get a reduction in the correlation coefficient if induced onto the tape by a second transmitter somewhere there were noises that exceeded the threshold level that you established? Dr. BARGER. Absolutely. The presence of impulses in the motorcycle tape that we counted, because we observed them robe there, that are caused by nonacoustical effects, give us therefore the impossibility of achieving a match because they were caused by some entirely different phenomenon. And the way of computing the cross correlation coefficient or the correlation coefficient that accommodates that, in other words, in the denominator is the square root of the number of impulses. If there is a lot of noise in the tape, as there is a good deal, and many of those impulses are caused by that, they can't be matched, and they will reduce the level of the correlation coefficient just mechanically, because there are numbers in the denominator. So if there are lots of noise pulses, that will reduce the correlation coefficient, exactly. Mr. FITHIAN. So you would not expect to get a one, or I think you used the term "unity." Dr. BARGER. The motorcycle tape is so noisy, not only with the sound of the motorcycle, but also keying transients and the like from other transmitters that it would be extremely unlikely that you would have a segment of the tape so noise free that a perfect correlation would be achieved, and in fact none were. Mr. FITHIAN. From what you know about the echo pattern of the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle, what insight if any, can you offer into Governor Connally's testimony, if you heard it or read it? Let me try to reconstruct. Do we have the transcript of Governor Connally? On September 6, Governor Connally testified and said that--let me back up here a little ways. Let me take his last part of his testimony first. He says, "I heard another shot. I heard it hit. It hit with a very pronounced impact," and at that point the Governor slapped his hands together to demonstrate the sound that he heard. "Almost like that."He said" It made a very, very strong sound." Then he says: Immediately I could see blood and brain tissue all over the interior of the car and all over our clothes. We were both covered with brain tissue * * * And he goes on. Now, as I interpret what the Governor said, after he had been hit, and Mrs. Connally had pulled him down into her lap, he was still conscious, and he heard what sounded like a shot, and then heard what sounded like the bullet striking the Presidents head. Now, No. 1, if in fact the speed of the bullet is supersonic, you could not hear it in that sequence; am I correct? Dr. BARGER. That is correct. Mr. FITHIAN. In other words, he would have had to have heard the bullet striking the skull first, and then the muzzle blast would come at some fraction of time after that? Dr. BARGER. That is correct. 83 Mr. FITHIAN. Well, then, obviously there has to be some other interpretation of those sounds, if in fact the Governor heard the sounds correctly. Can you shed any light on this at all? Dr. BARGER. Yes; the findings, as I have described them, are that if there are four shots, they have the sequences that we described, and in fact, if you could uncover that back chart, please, you will see that the time segment marked in green occurs a half a second before the time segment marked in black. Therefore, if there are four shots the times that they occur are shown there on that chart, the last two being a half a second apart. Now, as I indiated, there are false alarms in this detection experiment or test that I have conducted, and so, therefore, it is the purpose of other evidence to compare to these findings to see which--if you can determine which of these findings are, in fact, corroborated or are discredited by other evidence. In that sense, the comment that former Governor Connally made is of some relevance because a statement that two loud sounds were heard, that are separated only by a small period of time--I don't remember exactly what word he used--'shortly thereafter,' as I recall-would indicate that he heard two loud impulsive sounds at the time of the third shot. I can't put any significance in the fact that he may have inverted the two times. That was a traumatic period, obviously, for him. But it is interesting that he did, in fact, characterize as the sound of impact what must have been the sound of a rifle, because it would seem possible, then, that his testimony indicated there were two briefly separated impulsive sounds that might both have been shots. Mr. FITHIAN. I agree with you obviously that it was a very traumatic and almost impossible-to-imagine state of mind. But, I recall the Governor saying very clearly, early on, that he had done enough hunting that he recognized rifle shots when he heard them, et cetera, and that is what caused him to turn his head at the beginning way back, I don't know, frame 170 or 180, or whatever, and he did characterize or if there are only three shots and the last one is the one that hit the President in the head, then he had to confuse what would have been a bullet wound in the skull with a rifle shot. Dr. BARGER. That is correct. Mr. FITHIAN. As an expert in acoustics, can you just help me out in trying to distinguish what the differences in characteristics would have been? Going back to my original premise of the question, the first thing he heard after being in Mrs. Connally's lap could not have been a rifle shot if there is only one shot fired. Dr. BARGER. That is right. Mr. FITHIAN. The first sounded to him--if you x out our fourth one or third one you have come out with as a possibility, prior to the head shot, then that first noise the Governor heard could not have been a rifle shot. Dr. BARGER. If he could have heard the sound of the impact at all, as he thought he did, then it could not have been the second sound that he heard; it would have had to have been the first-what he described as an impact. 84 Mr. FITHIAN. My question was basically if you could help me describe acoustically or otherwise what the human ear would hear in the difference between a rifle shot from the Texas School Book Depository and a bullet striking the head of the President 6 feet away or 5 feet away or what ever. Dr. BARGER. I have heard the former, and, of course, I have no concept of the impact sound, I really have no opinion on that. Mr. FITHIAN. I want to return to that troublesome shot from the grassy knoll, the third one that comes just ahead of the obvious head shot. If we are to stay with three bullets being fired as our final interpretation, then we have to somehow or other rationalize a way or do away with or accept as other phenomena the third impulse that you have on your charts, is that correct? Dr. BARGER. That is correct. Mr. FITHIAN. What might the third impulse be, then, if it isn't a shot? Dr. BARGER. If it is a false alarm, which I described as the alternative to being a correct detection, by the very nature of a false alarm, it cannot be very easily explained. The only reliable procedure I can conceive of for identifying it as a false alarm is by comparing the time that it had to have occurred with all other testimony that has come and will follow about the possibility of that having occurred. Mr. FITHIAN. Random statistical errors? Would that have done it? Dr. BARGER. As I indicated just before, I think there is an even chance that about half of those remaining detections are, in fact, false alarms. Each one has an even probability of being one, including the one you just cited. I guess there is a chance of random error that that correlation occurred. Mr. FITHIAN. I would like to recall, Mr. Chairman, JFK exhibit F-370. Doctor, if you would proceed over there, I want to make sure before I turn you loose here that I understand that vital chart. Now, starting from the lower left-hand corner, where originally on the chart you had four possible verifications, and you eliminated one, you are fairly certain that that is the first shot, and you are fairly certain of the location of the motorcycle within 10 feet; is that correct? Dr. BARGER. The origin of this chart represents the estimate that the motorcycle was half-way between microphones 5 and 6 at that time; that is correct. Mr. FITHIAN. Now, you use the term "false alarm." Perhaps we should put up JFK F-367 there for you to refer to. I notice in some of those that you rule out as false alarms they are really the same shot except that one is with the muzzle at the plane of the window and the other is at the muzzle 2 feet inside. Isn't that correct? Dr. BARGER. There were these two which you must be referfing to. Mr. FITHIAN. Take No. l, for example. Dr. BARGER. This one? Mr. FITHIAN. Yes; which one have you eliminated--one of them you have eliminated. But is it meant that the first shot heard would have been from the grassy knoll and it would have been aimed at the target clear down by the underpass, is that correct? 85 Dr. BARGER. That is correct. Mr. FITHIAN. So you eliminated that just because it wasn't very probable that the first shot would have been it was 75(deg) away from where the limousine was, or what ever? Dr. BARGER. That is correct. I used that as an example of the lack of any evidence to corroborate that someone would have done that. Mr. FITHIAN. That leaves three other matches or verifications you came up with right in that time frame? Dr. BARGER. Yes. Mr. FITHIAN. As I read this chart, two of those are shots which were fired with everything exactly the same except that the rifle muzzle was withdrawn 2 feet from the plane of the window. Dr. BARGER. That is correct. Mr. FITHIAN. And so, in fact, all three of those matches come from the microphone being in the sameplace and everything else being in the same place with the exception that you fired one, which is shot No. 3, which has an 0.8 correlation coefficient, with the muzzle at the window plane, and you fired the other two, having 0.8 and 0.7 correlation coefficients, with the muzzle of the Mannlicher-Carcano withdrawn inside the window 2 feet. That is the only difference, isn't it? Dr. BARGER. That is correct apart from the fact that-- Mr. FITHIAN. I am trying to account for all these extra dots, because to the average person looking at that, it looks like there are 15 different shots and obviously that is not the case. We are trying to match up signals from repeated tests, and your verifications come up with four of those being possibly correct, and you eliminate one as being highly improbable. Dr. BARGER. Yes. Mr. FITHIAN. But the other three are all from a Mannlicher- Carcano shot from the window into the target. Dr. BARGER. Yes. Mr. FITHIAN. As you move on over about 1 1/2 seconds we see another group of shots which you have marked with a red circle. Dr. BARGER. That is correct. These are marked here and listed in this table. Mr. FITHIAN. As I take it, there are possibly four matches in that area. You have ruled out the one from the knoll at the target No. 2. The remaining four, again, are fired from the same place, the only difference being that two of them are with the muzzle withdrawn and two of them are with the muzzle at the plane of the window. Dr. BARGER. That is correct. Mr. FITHIAN. So, again, then we are not really talking about a different variety of shot impulses on the original tape. These are shot imputes you put on the test tape because you fired several times, isn't that correct? Dr. BARGER. That is correct. Mr. FITHIAN. And the reason they show up at that time frame match would be because on the original tape that is when the second shot was fired. Is that correct? 86 Dr. BARGER. That is very close to correct. These indicate where on the original tape is the pattern of impulses that looks like the test shots. Mr. FITHIAN. Now you are aware that the FBI test firing by the expert indicated you couldn't fire the MANNLICHER-CARANO more rapidly than 2.25 or 2.30 seconds. That much time had to separate shots. You are aware of that testimony in the Warren Commission. Dr. BARGER. As it turns out--I am aware of that and was . How- ever, I had no reason to put high reliability on that, and I could not allow that to influence the interpretation of the results. that correct? Dr. BARGER. Yes; I felt confident in ruling this one out, because I was certain there was no motorcycle going 55 miles an hour. On the other hand, the fact that all of these correlations came up 1.6 seconds later is the way the test developed, and that is the result that was obtained. Mr. FITHIAN. I want to make sure I also understand, when you look down in that lower left-hand corner, near the red circle, you have two dots below and two dots roughly above the imagined track of the motorcycle, but, again, during the same time frame-from here it looks like that might not be the case--with the upper right-hand match up in that group of four; is that correct? Dr. BARGER. Would you repeat that again? Mr. FITHIAN. In the vicnity of the red circle for shot No. 2--- Dr. BARGER. Yes. Mr. FITHIAN [continuing]. Two shots just below represent the same time frame. Dr. BARGER. Exactly. Mr. FITHIAN. You had to space it that way. Dr. BARGER. That was artistic license; that is right. Mr. FITHIAN. Now, if my eyes do not deceive me, the one immedi- ately above that is also on exactly the same time frame, that 1.6. Dr. BARGER. That is correct. Mr. FITHIAN. The fourth shot up and to the right, does that not represent a different time frame? Dr. BARGER. This is the fourth detection, not the fourth shot. Mr. FITHIAN. I am sorry. The fourth detection. Dr. BARGER. Of the four we have discussed so far. Yes. That one is this one. In other words, four of the matches in this segment of the tape which I have listed here as occurring at this time, were one, two, three, four, those all match at exactly the same place in the tape. Mr. FITHIAN. And you eliminated the highest, the one clear up at the top next to the limousine, because that would make the motorcycle going 100 miles an hour? Dr. BARGER. Yes. For a reason wholly unrelated to the evaluation of the test. I don't know whether there is another question remaining. Mr. FITHIAN. I am wondering if any of the rest of those four down there are clearly false alarms. Dr. BARGER I don't have any good indication that any of them are. 87 Mr. FITHIAN. If I am not mistaken, the upper right-hand one of those four is beyond the 2-second time limit on your linear scale at the bottom; is that correct? Dr. BARGER. That is correct. This particular match occurred at a different time than the other four. This one occurred at a slightly later time. It achieved a rather high value above the threshold of the cross-correlation coefficient, but it did it in a way that was unlike any of the other 14. The early echoes in that particular pattern didn't match with anything. It was all the later ones that matched. Therefore, the first match that was actually achieved in the echo pattern did not correspond with the leading edge of the echo pattern. In a sense, it is conceivable the leading that edge of the echo pattern could have been obliterated at that time by transmission from another motorcycle, or whatever. That would explain why its leading edge was off and its timing was bad. I included it in the results of the tests because objectively it had, in fact, exceeded the threshold of 0.6. Mr. FITHIAN. Now, move to the third, which would be your green shot, or green match up. That is the one that is 5.9 seconds later, or whatever the time is Mr. Cornwell. Now, am I not correct in visualizing that all three of those match ups are exactly on the same time frame? Dr. BARGER. That is correct. All three of those occur at the same time, 145.15 seconds after the microphone button is stuck. Mr. FITHIAN. So am I correct in assuming that if we are to discard that shot altogether or that echo pattern altogether, we have to discard all three of those despite the fact that you have three match ups on exactly the same time frame? Dr. BARGER. I am not sure I understood that. Mr. FITHIAN. Vertically. In the third verticle. Dr. BARGER. These three? Mr. FITHIAN. Yes. Those matchups occur from some kind of an impulse that goes at exactly that time; is that correct? Dr. BARGER.. That is correct. Mr. FITHIAN. So if we are to return to the three-shot theory, which has been exiting for 15 years, we must reject all three of those as being false alarms of some sort; is that correct? Dr. BARGIN. No; that is not correct. Or if it is true, I don't know why. Mr. FITHIAN. If there are only three shot impulses on that tape you got from the Dallas police force, and we all agree one of them is down in that blue circle and that caused all those matchups as No. 1, and we agree there are three matchups that are very close to the red circle for No. 2, that accounts for two shots. Dr. BARGER. Yes. Mr. FITHIAN. Then if we are going to accept the final series as the head shot--that is the one you have in black clear up the linear scale--if we are to reject an intervening shot, whatever the number is, we have to say that all of the matchups on that time line are false alarms. Dr. BARGER. Yes, that is correct. If that were to be rejected for any reason, then all of those at that time would have been false alarms, that is correct. 88 Mr. FITHIAN. You said you didn't prove we had four shots and I was trying to eliminate one. There are four time line groupings that indicate four shots, so we have to do something to eliminate one of the sets of impulses which are line up on that vertical. Am I on the right line? Dr. BARGER. If there were in fact three, it would be necessary to identify either this one or both of these, or four of these, or three of those as false alarms. There are other possibilties. Because of sound we have found no evidence of more than four, but we have found there may be four and if there are they occurred with this time sequence. Mr. FITHIAN. Congressman Edgar calls my attention to the fact that in the third sequence, the one we just referred to now, the green sequence, that one of those is from a shot fired at target No. 2. Dr. BARGER. Yes, that is correct. Mr. FITHIAN. If we match up the Zapruder film, it seems rather unlikely since the limousine is on down the way a little further than that. Dr. BARGER. The target location is one target location removed, but that is not a very large difference. Mr. FITHIAN. I think that is all the questions I have on that particular chart. Did you and your team reconstruct for the committee the sound of the gun shots as they would have been heard if in fact we are to accept this final chart with four impulses? Do we have a sound recreation of that? Dr. BARGER. Mr. Robinson has prepared a tape spliced up of the four test shots that were representative of the four possible locations where there might have been shots and I believe he is prepared to play that. Mr. FITHIAN. If the Chair would permit, I would like to have it played. Chairman STOKES. You may proceed. Mr. CORNWELL. Mr. Chairman, we might identify it for the record as a tape recording, JFK exhibit F-353 and we would like to have it admitted into evidence. Chairman STOKES. It will be so identified and so ordered. [Tape recording played for the committee.] [JFK exhibit F-353 is retained in committee files.] Dr. BARGER. I think it would be appropriate for me to tell you where those sounds are recorded. That was microphone 5. If we can see the exhibit that has the map of Dealey Plaza---- Mr. FITHIAN. I believe it is JFK exhibit F-337. I have one last question on that anyway. Dr. BARGER. What you just heard were the sounds picked up at this microphone of shots fired from here, the first two; one shot then fired from here, followed half a second later by one shot from there. Mr. FITHIAN. Could you point to the place on the street where the motorcycle would have been located when the third of those impulses or shots were recorded? 89 Dr. BARGER. Yes. The estimate of the motorcycle position that we achieved by this test placed it 120 feet behind the Presidential limousine. Given that the Presidential limousine was just short of frame 313 at the time of the fourth shot, the position of the motorcycle was then 120 feet behind it at this position. In fact that green dot represented the estimated position of the motorcycle at the time of that third impulse that we detected that might be the knoll shot, in fact. The black dot here represents the position of the motorcycle where it would have been at the time of the fourth impulse that we identified as a possible shot. Mr. FITHIAN. Thank you. I have one last question having to do with the authenticity of the tape itself that you worked with. I am sure that many will want to know whether or not there is internal evidence or otherwise that can attest to the fact that the tape which you were working with--that is, the original tape you were working with--was indeed a tape of the shootings in Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963. What information can you shed as to your best judgment as to which tape you were working with? Dr. BARGER. In the first place, the tapes that we received from the committee staff were represented as being that. However, at a different time we received a Dictabelt, which is a plastic continuous blue colored belt that was marked as "Being recorded from Channel 1" in a white marking pencil. Channel 1 of the Dallas police tape on November 22, 1963. We obtained a rebuilt Dictabelt recorder, newly rebuilt, and we played that Dictabelt and made our own magnetic recording of the Dictabelt. We then analyzed this middle segment around 12:30 of that recording that we had made from the Dictabelt on the same computer and in the same way that we had the first one and had it print out a record, a wave form record. We compared the two and found them to be identical in virtually every detail. Mr. FITHIAN. And, the appearance of the Dictabelt, was there anything there that would indicate anything to you? Dr. BARGER. It had the appearance of having been played a great deal and being quite old. The margins of the belt were cracked and it was necessary to tape them together to prevent further deterioration in the plane. Mr. FITHIAN. Are you satisfied from ascientific analysis and in fact the way you have described it carefully this morning, that this particular recording passed all of your six screening tests; that you were indeed working with a recording of Dealey Plaza, November 22, 1963? Dr. BARGER. Yes. The likelihood that the shape of the patterns that we achieved correlations on having come from some other place, seems extremely remote to us. Mr. FITHIAN. I would ask staff counsel Cornwell whether or not we have additional information on the chain of custody. Mr. CORNWELL We do have additional information, Congressman. We had obtained the tape recording and Dictabelt originally from Mr. Paul McCaghren, who is now a retired member of the Dallas Police Department. We know the details of the story that we received at the time we got the tape from Mr. McCarran. He is here today. I can either summarize for you the information he has 90 provided, or he is available and if the committee so desires, he could testify as to those facts himself, at your convenience. Mr. FITHIAN. Mr. Chairman, I would not want to interrupt the committee's questioning of the witness now on the stand, but I would ask that immediately upon conclusion of this we bring the witness forward who can attest and I think probably very briefly, but certainly as to the chain of custody. I think it is very important that we do this. Chairman STOKES. The Chair will be glad to entertain that. Mr. FITHIAN. Mr. Barger, I certainly want to thank you for your answers and your insight and I would appreciatey our final collective judgment as to whether there are three or four impulses on that tape that could represent gunshots? Dr. BARGER. We have endeavored, Mr. Fithian, to make as powerful a detection test as we could devise and to lower the acceptance threshold of those matches that passed the threshold so that all likely correct detections would emerge. In so doing, we found that the process had sufficient noise in it that some of the detections that passed our threshold are false alarms. We believe that the chances are very high that we have in fact located the motorcycle and, of course, that was done by matching sounds of gunfire. Therefore, to believe the probability that there were at least two shots is very high because it would take at least two to establish that pattern on the chart. You can't draw a straight line through one point. The indication is that there are probably somewhere between three, maybe six additional falsealarms that we cannot on our own information correctly identify as false alarms. There fore, we think each of the detections that we have made is about equally likely to be a false alarm. As there is only one detection remaining for the third shot--I don't remember what color it was, but it was the knoll shot, it is about equally likely that it is a false alarm. Therefore, it is about equally likely that there were three shots. However, there is an equal likelihood that there were four, and if there were, we have determined the time at which they occurred and, we also believe, the location from which they came. Mr. FITHIAN. If there were four locations from which they had come, it would have been where? Dr. BARGER. They would have been those indicated in the chart that was up there a little while ago. At the first time, all of the detections that were not Clearly false alarms were fired from the Book Depository. At the second time, 1.6 seconds later, likewise those that have not been identified as clearly false alarms are from the depository. At the third time, the one that is not disqualified by in appropriate motion of the motorcycle is from the knoll. At the last time, half a second later, those two nondisqualified detections are both from the Book Depository. Mr. FITHIAN. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman STOKES. The time of the gentleman has expired. The committee will now proceed on the 5-minute rule. Doctor, I am going to ask that you replay the tape that you played a few moments ago. Prior to playing the tape, I am going to 91 ask you to tell us what we ought to listen for and ask you further to tell us precisely what we should condude from what we have heard. Dr. BARGER. I wouldn't presume, Chairman Stokes, to tell you what you should conclude from anything. Chairman STOKES. What do you conclude from what you hear as an acoustical expert and as a scientist? Dr. BARGER. You are asking me my opinion of the sound of those shots now before they are played a second time? Chairman STOKES. Yes. Dr. BARGER. I just heard them for the first time in that order. Of course. I heard them singly several Sundays ago in Dallas. I really think my opinion about them is of no particular value. Professor Green, who will follow me, is an expert on how sounds affect people. I am more expert in how sounds affect microphones. I must say, when I just heard them it sounded like test shots that I heard several Sundays ago. Why don't we hear them again? Chairman STOKES. May we have the tape played again, please? [Tape replayed.] Dr. BARGER. Let me add all of the hissing noise you hear is necessary to make the impulsive sounds sufficiently audible because they are so brief that they have to be loud in order to be clealy heard. Chairman STOKES. Now, you are in a better position to respond to my original question. Dr. BARGER. I understand the question is, what do I think those sound like, is that correct? Chairman STOKES. In order to help me, when listen to that tape can I come to a conclusion from what I appear to be heating? Dr. BARGER. I think not. The microphone is a device that accepts sounds from all directions with equal facility, where as the human ear is not. The human can make a judgment about the directions from which the sounds arrive and this was not a stereo recording so we haven't been able to replicate the directionality of the sounds and echoes, and therefore I just don't believe I can reach a meaningful conclusion about how those sounds should be interpreted. Chairman STOKES. I am rather concerned about the 9-foot uncertainty which you ascribe to the location of the motorcycle. I believe that is your testimony, is that right? Dr. BARGER. That is correct. Chairman STOKES. In order to reduce or lessen the uncertainty with reference to the placement of the motorcycles, can you tell me to what degree you have studied the Zapruder film or any other films or to what degree you have studied photographs in order to try and reduce the uncertainty? Dr. BARGER. I think the only way that photographs would be helpful would be to show where the motorcycle in fact was. I know of no such photographs at the time of the shooting. Chairman STOKES. What I have in mind, Doctor, is with reference to the placement of the motorcycle because that is where the uncertainty comes. That is precisely where the motorcycle was in Dealey Plaza at the time each of the shots were fired, is that correct, and that is where the uncertainty comes in? 92 Dr. BARGER. That is where some of the uncertainty comes from. Chairman STOKES. You make an allowance of something like 9 feet in terms of the uncertainty, is that right? Dr. BARGER. We made an allowance in the correlation procedure to accept some uncertainty in the microphone location. Chairman STOKES. All I am attempting to ascertain from you is something to reduce or lessen that uncertainty as much as is scientifically possible. To what degree did you study any available photographs or films in order to try and make a more accurate placement of the motorcycle? Dr. BARGER. Well, before we conducted the detection experiment, we had absolutely no idea which motorcycle it was. We could look at motorcycles a lot and it wouldn't tell us anything. After we did the detection experiment and then had the position of the motorcycle revealed to us, we found, in fact, that it appeared to be about 120 feet behind the limousine. We looked at the photographs available to us, to see if there were any photographs taken at the time of the shooting of that part of the motorcade about 120 feet back, and we found none. We have seen some photographs taken less than l minute before the shooting, and there are motorcycles back there, but there is so much time elapsed between those pictures and the time of the shooting, it wouldn't help us within 9 feet. Chairman STOKES. My time has expired. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Devine. Mr. DEVINE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Doctor. I think you are a very patient man to go through all of this in the methodical detail as you have. I have a couple questions as a nonscience layman. I would like to know what is your definition of a false alarm. Dr. BARGER. A false alarm is the correct description in detection theory for an indication from your test that an event occurred when in fact it did not occur. Our test, which was a correlation detection test was set up to give an indication that an event occurred whenever the correlation coefficient exceeded 0.6. Every time that happens there are two possible outcomes. One is, we have got the indication of the gunfire event when, in fact, there was a gunfire event at that time--let's call it a detection. The other possible outcome is there was not, in fact, a gun fire event at that time. That is called a false alarm. In other words, it is an error, a mistake. Mr. DEVINE. Well, it either happened or it didn't happen, I suspect, when we are talking about either soundwaves or whatever detection you are talking about. I was under the impression it might be a convenient way to eliminate the unexplainable. Dr. BARGER. Unfortunately, there is no way to eliminate the unexplainable that I can explain. False alarms don't have to be hard to find. Some of our identifications of falsealarm are easy, in that they would require the motorcycle to fly all over the place. On the other hand, a false alarm can mimic a correct detection, and if it mimics it well, it is hard to identify as a false alarm. In fact, I present the results of our test in this way, with the hope that it will simplify the job, in the face of uncertainty, of the committee to 93 consider other testimony that potentially verities or refutes these findings. Mr. DEVINE. I believe you said in your summary by your tests you have located at least two shots that were fired that were not false, and that there was an equal likelihood that there was a third or fourth shot. I mean it is likely that there was or wasn't a third and or fourth shot. Now, in listening to the recording which I have had an opportunity like all others here to have heard just twice it seemed to me as one who was in the past a firearms expert, having spent alot of time on the range and recognizing rifle fire, my personal interpretation based on that tape that I heard that the first, the second and the fourth noises sounded to me quite a bit like a rifle shot, the third noise that immediately preceded the fourth sounding like possibly something else. I am not that sure, and I haven't had enough time to listen and study, but it brings me back to what you said earlier--I think it was brought out in Mr. Fithian's questioning that Secretary Connally couldn't possibly have heard the shot that hit JFK's head before the sound of impact when the bullet hit the head. To the contrary, he may have heard the head explosion before he heard the shot that did it. Isn't that likely due to his immediate proximity to the President, and the distance from which the shot was fired, the muzzle velocity, and so forth. Isn't it possible that he could have heard that head explosion prior to the sound of the shot that caused it? Dr. BARGER. If he heard the impact on the head, he would have had to hear it first. Mr. DEVINE. I don't know if you were here when he testified. But, he startled the room by clapping his hands on the sound that he thought was the head hit. Dr. BARGER. Yes. Chairman STOKES. The time of the gentleman has expired. The gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. Preyer. Mr. PREYER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Following up the comment of Mr. Devine about the sound of the shot hitting the President's head, that Mr. Fithian asked you about, one thing I would like to get the record clear on: I think you stated you had no opinion as to how a bullet would sound hitting the President's head, but can you say one way or the other that it would not be nearly as loud a sound as the sound of a rifle shot firing? Dr. BARGER. I have here the sound of rifle shots. I haven't heard anything approximating that other event, and, therefore, what I am giving you is not an opinion based on scientific evidence; it is an off-the-wall guess. I would imagine that the sound of an impact of that sort would not be as loud as a rifle shot. Mr. PREYER. What I am getting at is, the last two patterns on the tape, the possible third and fourth shots could not possibly be (1) the rifle firing, and (2) the head exploding. Dr. BARGER. Those events did not occur in that order; that is correct. Mr. PREYER. In other words, nothing on the tape could possibly be an indication of the head shot sound? 94 Dr. BARGER. You could not interpret those sounds in that way; that is correct. Mr. PREYER. We might have some confusion on that. You mentioned at the end of your statement to Mr. Devine that the committee should view this as evidence, as I understood you to say, which potentially requires verification. Something to that effect. Earlier my notes indicated you said something like this, "Since there are false alarms we must examine the other evidence to see whether this corroborates it or not." My question is, did you regard the evidence of your experiments here as what we would call in the law corroborating evidence only or would you consider it as direct primary evidence? In other words, you seem to be saying that this is not like an Xray, exactly, where you can see it and know it as a physical reality and a fact. But, that this is subject to errors, and subject to false alarms and that it should be used to corroborate other evidence which should not be used in itself to prove the truth of the statement it makes. Dr. BARGER. I am not certain of the question, but I think you are observing that I said that the potential of the evidence that we are presenting, the test results that we are presenting, is as a potential corroborating force toward other evidence. It is also, of course, and if I didn't say this, I should have, a potential discrediting force when compared to other evidence. Is that what I didn't say that you think I should have? Mr. PREYER. Well, I guess I am asking you how far the acoustic science has developed and the strength of the evidence of your test. That is, is it like a fingerprint that if it says one thing we know it is true and we disbelieve any contradictory evidence or is it a state that is still partly art and part science and that we should treat its results cautiously, Dr. BARGER. The results of the test that I presented are--I have presented as objectively as I can--I indicate that it seems quite important that we can identify here and I have some of these detections that we achieved we can properly identify them as false alarms. I believe that the remaining ten or so are each about equally likely to be false alarms in themselves and I am required to say that by the uncertainty in the results and I am not sure that I am answering any question any more, and would you kindly help me by reminding-- Mr. PREYER. I think you have been conscientiously objective in understating rather than overstating. To put it in laymen terms are you saying that it is about a 50-50 chance that there was a third and fourth shot? Dr. BARGER. It comes down to that because the third shot indicated in green is supported by only one detection. Since I don't feel I can put more confidence in any single detection than I have indicated, the possibility of the third impulse pattern actually representing a shot is about even. Therefore, the question of four or three depends on that one detection. It comes down to what you said. Chairman STOKES. The time of the gentleman has expired. The gentleman from Connecticut, Mr. Dodd. 95 Mr. DODD. I think you may have just answered my question, Doctor, in your answer to Judge Preyer's last question to you. But, for the purpose of clarity, you have obviously made a judgment here with regard to the probabilities of certain indications on the spectrograph being what would appear to be gunshots. Could you state for us what the probabilities are as for the first, second, third, and fourth sounds being gunshots? Dr. BARGER. Yes, I will attempt that. Altogether I said the pattern of the detections that we achieved were tested statistically and found to be such that they would have arisen by chance only 5 percent of the time. So I think therefore the probability that we have found at least two is very high. Mr. DODD. What would you mean by very high? What are you talking about? Dr. BARGER. I think I just said I meant 95 percent. The necessity that others be accepted---- Mr. DODD. Would you try to speak into the microphone, Doctor? Dr. BARGER. The requirement that a third one be accepted would be dependent on either of two of the detections standing up in the fourth area or three standing up in the first area, for example. Those are reasonably likely in the first case, less so in the fourth case because it has only two. An estimate on my part to state the probabilities, which you have asked about--and this is hard to do because I don't want to confuse the results of the tests as they stand. The probability that there are two that we have detected is 95 percent. The probability there are three that we have detected correctly is probably somewhere between 60 or 70 percent; the probability that there are four is lower than that, around 50 percent. Mr. DODD. Thank you. Could you indicate for me what effect the location of the targets has on the waveforms produced by rifle fire? Looking at JFK F-367, there are target locations that seem to change and I was trying to follow you as you were trying to identify false alarms and what you think may not be false alarms and correlating those to target locations. Is there a significant difference and, if so, in the third area--I guess that is green over there--could you indicate to me what the target location differences would mean there? Dr. BARGER. I am not sure I understand that question. Mr. DODD. Let me first of all ask you, does it make a difference? Dr. BARGER. What target gave the correlation? Mr. DODD. Target location. Dr. BARGER. Yes. Mr. DODD. How about the wave form produced by rifle fire? Dr. BARGER. Yes. The exact location of the target has a different effect on the echo pattern depending on the location of the rifle, the target and the microphone. If the rifle is pointing approximately 90(deg )or so away from the direction between the rifle and the microphone, then the location of the target has very little effect because the shockwave radiated by the bullet which is dependent on which way the gun is firing, never reaches the microphone anyway. 96 However, if the target is in such a location that the shot passes near to the microphone on its way to the target, then a change in the target location is important because in that case the sound of the shockwave is in fact a part of the pattern. Mr. DODD. Looking at the 145.15 second block--that is the green block--- Dr. BARGER. That is correct. That is green. Mr. DODD. We have got two separate target locations there. Do you have that before you? Can you see that? The first one as I can see it is the knoll; the second one is the School Book Depository, and the target location is 2. The third is Texas School Book Depository and that is in the first three, is that correct? Dr. BARGER. That is correct. Mr. DODD. Now, which of those did you exclude as a false alarm? Dr. BARGER. The last two were excluded as a false alarm because they were detections made in microphones 7 and 8, which are about 60 feet away from microphone 4 where the other detection was made. It would have been necessary for the motorcycle to be speeding up in order to achieve that position in the time allowed and the sound of the motorcycle was in fact diminished all throughout that time. Mr. DODD. I am sorry to ask you to repeat. If you accept the existence of a fourth shot occurring there in the black figures, then the third shot you would have to accept as the rightful location being on the grassy knoll? Dr. BARGER. Well, under the presumption that you couldn't fire from the same place within a half second, that would be true. I think that is what you mean. Mr. DODD. Thank you very much. Chairman STOKES. The time of the gentleman has expired. The gentleman from Connecticut, Mr. McKinney. Mr. McKINNEY. As I listen to your reenactment of the tape, there is a distinct difference between the third shot fired--not just a time difference, but a sound difference--between the third shot fired and the first, second and fourth. Is my impression correct? Dr. BARGER. It does sound different to me, yes. Mr. McKINNEY. It does sound differently to you? Dr. BARGER. Yes. Mr. McKINNEY. Since that shot sounds differently and also is much closer to any other shot in time--at least from the reenactment--how can you be sure that particular shot is not a false alarm? In other words, you have two shots, at least to my ear--and I know my ear is not very accurate--that sounded alike in the beginning and then you have a third shot followed almost immediately by another one in the reenactment. The third shot sounds quite differently. What is it about that particular shot that had you include it, in other words might have told you that it wasn't a false alarm or something else? Dr. BARGER. Nothing has told me it is not a false alarm. The features of that shot that caused it to have been detected in the first place was simply that the pattern generated by it at that 97 microphone matched sufficiently well with the noise on the tape at that time that it was accepted as a possible detection. I don't know whether it is a false alarm or not. Mr. McKINNEY. So then could I assume that the likelihood that if any of the four shots that we heard were false alarms, that you could presume more strongly that it is third one? Dr. BARGER. I think you are looking for an indication of the power of the test to find a shot, given that one may be quite different than another, and would the different one be easier to find. Is that the question, or am I completely off? Mr. McKINNEY. I guess what I am really saying is that we seem to have three occurrences that are pretty similar--one, two and four. Dr. BARGER. Yes. Mr. McKINNEY. And we have a third that looks differently, and sounds differently. I was just questioning as to whether or not that was the one that you could presume was most likely to have perhaps been something else, or perhaps been another occurrence, or backfire, or something. Dr. BARGER. I don't have the information to answer that. I don't know about other occurrences. Mr. McKINNEY. Neither do I. Dr. BARGER. But I do know about test shots fired in Dallas. All I can say is that particular sound on the tape sounded sufficiently like one of the test shots in Dallas to have scored above the threshold. Mr. McKINNEY. But then if we were to accept that third shot as we heard it in the reproduction as a shot, it would have had to have come from the grassy knoll? Dr. BARGER. That is correct. If it occurred, that is where it came from. Mr. McKINNEY. Not to get back into the game of probabilities, which we already played down the line, would you consider--is your probability on the third shot the lowest of the group? Dr. BARGER. Yes. Mr. McKINNEY. Thank you very much. Chairman STOKES. The time of the gentleman has expired. The gentleman from Tennessee, Mr. Ford. Mr. FORD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, let me ask a question to you and to the staff at this point. Dr. Barger mentioned earlier, when you questioned him, that they conducted an analysis of the police tape, and the tape that was done in Dallas with the experiment. Just which tape did we hear a few minutes ago? Dr. BARGER. Was that my question? Mr. FORD. I was asking--maybe the staff. Yes, I will raise the question to you. Dr. BARGER. What you were hearing were the sounds of four of the test shots recorded in Dallas 3 weeks ago, or whenever. Mr. FORD. The tape that we heard a few minutes ago--- Dr. BARGER. Yes, was prepared by splicing together four of the shots that were recorded during the reconstruction. 98 Mr. FORD. So we are not talking about the tape from the police motorcycle. Dr. BARGER. Well, we were not listening to it; that is correct. Mr. FORD. I was under the impression that we were listening to the tape from the police motorcycle of 1963, but we were not. Dr. BARGER. No, sir. If it had been that distinct, we would have followed an entirely different detection scheme that would have been much easier to explain. Mr. FORD. Let me ask you another question. From what you said earlier, are you able to distinguish from which directions the shots came? I recall your earlier testimony regarding three shots and a possible fourth shot, and different directions. Are you able to pinpoint that and, at the same time, unable to determine if there were three or four shots fired? Dr. BARGER. Well, we can only imply the direction of the shot by the location of the target and the gun for the test shot that matched. In other words, each time we get a match between the noises, the impulsive noises on the Dallas police tape made during the assassination, and each time one of those noises correlates or matches with one of the echo patterns, we can only infer what the direction of the shot was by knowing what it was during that test shot. Otherwise--that is the procedure. Mr. FORD. All right. I was reading here that the team of scientists headed by you concluded that a reliable and credible conclusion could be determined if they could test and analyze in three crucial areas. When you appeared before this committee, however, you testified that you could not be sure whether there were three or four shots fired on November 22, 1963. So, we are not able to pinpoint that at this time; is that correct? Dr. BARGER. The results of the tests are inconclusive to the degree that I described them, I believe, when I was answering Mr. Dodd's question, or Congressman Preyer--I am not sure whose question it was. There is uncertainty in the results, as I described it. Mr. FORD. I don't have any further questions, Mr. Chairman. Chairman STOKES. The time of the gentleman has expired. The gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Edgar. Mr. EDGER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I have to admit that I am a little bit confused, and I would like to try to clarify some of what I have heard throughout today. Your testimony has been detailed. Let me just ask you this question. Before you went to Dallas, before you went to Dallas to do the experimental test, you were more sure, I believe, of four impulses which you found on the original tape. That was one of the reasons why you came back to the committee to suggest that the test firings be held. It seems to me that after the Dallas trip you seemed less certain of the four-shot indications that you received though the computerized acoustics. Why is that? Dr. BARGER. Because the tests that I had performed at the time that I spoke to the committee previously were the screening tests 99 that I described today. These are very weak tests. It is not particularly difficult to pass them. You recall they had to occur at the right time of day, they had to have the total timespan of 5 seconds or more, they had to have the right kind of distorted waveforms. There were six in total. These were not very stringent tests. There were, in fact, four patterns, or four segments of the tape that had impulses on them that passed these weak, nonstringent tests. The opinion that I intended to convey at that time was that I could not rule out that the impulsive events in these segments of the tape were in fact gunfire because they had passed those six screening tests. On the other hand, I said there was no way I could be sure that they were because the data were so noisy and that there was no way I could be sure, unless I could find out what echo patterns were in fact generated by gunfire in Dallas. I described that as a test that was the best one that we could conceive to determine whether those impulse patterns were in fact shots or not. Mr. EDGER. As I remember it, you had a long roll of paper that you rolled out across the table for us. Dr. BARGER. Yes. Mr. EDGAR. And you were able to indicate four patterns of blips on your computerized paper that indicated something occurred in those four time frames. Dr. BARGER. Yes. Mr. EDGAR. Do the four timeframes that are on the weak evidence-that is, the pre-Dallas evidence--correspond to the timing, the minutes and seconds timing, that is listed alongside the four possible shots that you indicate in today's testimony? Dr. BARGER. No. Of the four impulse patterns that I had originally described, the first three proved to give us detections in this matching test that we performed. The fourth did not. However, we got two in the third that I showed you that time. In other words, my indication of the general areas that might contain matches with gunfire sounds were approximately correct, but not in detail. Mr. EDGAR. Approximately correct, but not in detail. Was there one of those weak impulse areas that, after going to Dallas, you can discount as being a gunshot? Dr. BARGER. Well, yes, I think I understand that question. I showed four segments of the tape that had patterns that I thought might be gunfire, because they passed these six screening tests, and the last of those four did not subsequently prove to contain any. Mr. EDGAR. So that it was the third tentative weak gunshot that has now been divided into two possible gunshots? Dr. BARGER. That is correct. Mr. EDGAR. And you say it is a 50-50 chance that the fourth gunshot described up here is just a 50-50 chance; is that correct? Dr. BARGER. That is correct. I have insufficient evidence to state anything stronger or weaker than that. Mr. EDGAR. Is there any test that we could make that could reduce the uncertainty? 100 Dr. BARGER. Congressman, the answer to that literally is yes. Now that the position of the motorcycle has been fixed with some confidence one would not bother with microphones all over other parts of Dealey Plaza, for example. However, I believe that the advantages to be gained from rectifying that problem are very marginal, and I doubt if they could reasonably be expected to improve the level of uncertainty in the test. Mr. EDGAR. When I go home to explain what I have heard today to my 11-year-old son, who is in the seventh grade, what do I tell him? Dr. BARGER. How much time do you have? [Laughter.] Mr. EDGAR. I have all of the evening dinner to explain to him what I heard. I am just trying to get it into a language that I can communicate with him. Dr. BARGER. That is a good question. I think the answer would go something like this. There was, by a considerable measure of chance, a motorcycle in the motorcade with its radio in an operating condition, but with the motorcycle policeman not speaking into it. The motorcycle was just moving. Over that radio were heard a series of sounds, including the motorcycle, including other radios, and including the possibility of the sounds of the assassination of the President. What you were observing today was the description of a test that was made on that tape to see if it was statistically likely to have contained the sounds of gunfire. You found out that it was possible from this test to locate the position of the motorcycle with a good deal of confidence 15 years later. It turned out that the motorcycle was about 10 feet short of the corner, at the approximate time of the first gunfire, when the motorcycle noise in fact was observed then to abate, and the man slowed down. You found also that motorcycle was in a position, found to be in a position, when the first shot was heard, that corresponded to the limousine being in the position where it was at approximately the time of the first shot. For these reasons and others that I have described, there is good confidence that the motorcycle has been found. Therefore, good confidence that some of the shots have been correctly detected. There is less confidence in questions of increasing detail, and I hope he enjoys the story. [Laughter.] Chairman STOKES. The time of the gentleman has expired. Mr. EDGAR. Thank you. Chairman STOKES. The gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Sawyer. Mr. SAWYER. I have been following the testimony reasonably closely, but I am somewhat perplexed. You actually caused these shots to be fired in the same environment as the other shots were fired, with the same echoes and refractions and reflections and whatnot. So, you have a known-namely, your own--recording of what you knew were shots. Now, were you able then, by comparing that to your oscillographic pictures of what was on that tape, to say what was on that tape were or were not shots? 101 Dr. BARGER. Was able to-- Mr. SAWYER [continuing]. Determine whether what was on that motorcycle tape originally were or were not shots, these disturbances? Dr. BARGER. We were able to determine that with considerable uncertainty that I have described. Mr. SAWYER. You were not, then, able to determine at least to the point of forming a scientific opinion that those were shots? Dr. BARGER. It is my judgment, our judgment, the judgment of the team that did this study, that we have detected with about 95 percent likelihood, at least two of them, and on down the scale that I described for Congressman Dodd or Preyer--I still can't remember which. Mr. SAWYER. You have described now a number of times these probabilities. But let me ask you this. I am not an expert, and no one else on this panel to my knowledge is, certainly in this type of thing. You have had a chance now to conduct the test, to examine the tape, to examine the results. Do you have an opinion yourself, aside from any other evidence, based just on your tests of this tape, do you have an opinion as to whether there were three or four shots fired? Dr. BARGER. I have gone to some pains to present my opinion. I believe that I have presented the results of this test as clearly as I know how. Mr. SAWYER. I understand all that, but now you have explained the pros and cons of the test. But laying aside any other evidence, you have now conducted the tests, and you have looked at the oscillograph of this motorcycle tape. Now, do you as a professional in this area have an opinion as to whether or not there were three or four shots fired? Dr. BARGER. Congressman, I can't add any information by saying I think there are three or four. I believe the results of the test do not allow me to state with greater certainty than I have, the answer to that question. Mr. SAWYER. Well, then all I can say is I would hate to civilly sue anybody, let alone prosecute anybody, on this kind of evidence. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman STOKES. The time of the gentleman has expired. Doctor, let me go back for a moment and try and clarify something. It appears to me that in answering both Mr. Dodd and Mr. Sawyer, when you make reference to the probabilities, that you group the four shots in terms of the probabilities. When you say that two of the shots, the probabilities are 95 percent; three, the probability is 60 to 70 percent; and that the fourth is approximately 50 percent. Would you please individualize for us, and tell us which are the two where the probabilities are 95 percent, which is the one which is approximately 60 to 70 percent, and which is the one that is 50 percent. Dr. BARGER. Congressman Sawyer isn't going to like this answer, but the probabilities that I gave you are based on not distinguishing which three, which two. In other words, the high confidence 102 that we have is based on the high degree of order in the detections, and that can be established by two, any two. Mr. SAWYER. Let me say I anticipated the answer, Mr. Chairman. Dr. BARGER. If I might indicate possible mitigating circumstances for Congressman Sawyer, I do believe that even with this level of uncertainty, it is quite important to know when they occurred, if they did. I can see that Congressman Sawyer is not convinced of that. Chairman STOKES. Let me ask you this. I would assume, then, from your former answer, that you are unable to identify what shot or impulses represented the grassy knoll shot or impulse? Dr. BARGER. I think not. I don't believe that is a correct interpretation of the results. If the shot at that time, 7 1/2 seconds, indicated in green, stands up, then it was from the grassy knoll--it would not have been from the Depository. Chairman STOKES. Now, I understand from your previous testimony that the shot which you simulated in Dealey Plaza from the grassy knoll was with a .32 revolver, or a .38? Dr. BARGER. Well, the one with a pistol, yes. There was also a rifle fired from there. Chairman STOKES. Simultaneously, or separately? Dr. BARGER. No, separately. The tests included separate and distinct shots from rifles and from pistols, from the knoll. Chairman STOKES. Well, with reference to the pistol, what caliber was that? Dr. BARGER. 38. Chairman STOKES. 38. And that is a subsonic or supersonic type of sound that emanates? Dr. BARGER. The particular charge in the bullet used made it a subsonic projectile. Chairman STOKES. The composition of the bullet gave you a supersonic result. Dr. BARGER. I am sorry. Yes, we were firing a subsonic projectile from that pistol. Chairman STOKES. All right. Now, is there a different type of acoustical representation that you will get depending upon whether it is subsonic or supersonic? Dr. BARGER. Yes, there is. That is why we also fired a rifle from the knoll because it has a supersonic projectile. Chairman STOKES. I see. So that in terms of the simulation, and in the absence of any real knowledge as to whether a subsonic or supersonic type of firing came from the grassy knoll, you are unable, with any real degree of certainty, of being able to say that is in effect a real simulation, aren't you? Dr. BARGER. If that one should stand up, that shot from the knoll matched with a rifle shot, and not a pistol shot. The match achieved with the pistol shot was very poor. Therefore, it is possible with confidence to distinguish on that point, and it would appear that there was not a subsonic projectile fired from the knoll. Chairman STOKES. I just have one further question. With reference to attempting to simulate the scene as you did, to what degree did the lack of a crowd such as there existed on that particular day in 1963 affect your simulation? 103 Dr. BARGER. Well, it affected it very little because the sounds that are scattered from a person are of the sort that I described earlier today, as scattered sounds. This is the weakest form of redirecting the sound from a source and into a receiver. Our thresholding procedure, which eliminated all of the weak sounds, both in the test pattern and in the police tape, was designed to eliminate the contribution of weak echoes such as those due to the presence of people. Chairman STOKES. I see. My time has expired. Other members seeking recognition? The Chair recognizes counsel, Gary Cornwell. Mr. CORNWELL. We have to leave you in a few moments, I am sure, Dr. Barger. We want to take away from your presentation whatever we can of a constructive nature. You made a statement informally to me last evening which I think you mentioned previously in your testimony, but nevertheless, it might merit further explanation for just a moment. That, as I recall, was to the effect that a scientist such as yourself can basically give us the data, and can to a limited degree provide us some insights about the probabilities of any one aspect of the data occurring by random chance, but that once you present us with the data, it is the committee's problem then to decide how to interpret it in the end. Is that correct? Dr. BARGER. That is correct. Mr. CORNWELL. From your point of view, then, all you can do to help us unscramble the chart is to tell us what a mechanical, numerical calculation of some type, how it comes out, with respect to the random chances of various events occurring. I take it there is no probability which will tell us how many shots occurred, or which were the real ones and the wrong ones in the end. Is that correct? Dr. BARGER. None that I know of beyond what I have mentioned. Mr. CORNWELL. All right. So what we must do, then, is take the data and see what external corroboration or impeachment can be applied to it. Dr. BARGER. That is my view, yes. Mr. CORNWELL. Just so that we understand what help you can provide us in that task, I would like very quickly to run through the chart and use it with some hypotheticals out of it. Let's talk about the top line of each of the four time segments. In the first time segment, the top line is in microphone array 2-5, a shot from a TSBD, down toward target 1. The second shot, the motorcycle's apparent location is moved from mike 2-5 to 2-6, slightly up the street, another shot from the TSBD, down to the street and the target, somewhere in the motorcade. The next one, picked up with the microphone again slightly further down the street, a shot from the knoll, out to the motorcade. Finally, another shot from the TSBD, motorcycle again slightly further down the street, pointed at the motorcade. With respect to each of those four possible shots, apart from any probabilities, independently, we might say, they each occurred at 104 the right time of the day, they each were unique in the data overall that you analyzed, they each occurred within a time span which did encompass at least 5 seconds, the shape of each of the impulses was what you would expect, the amplitude was roughly what you would expect, and the number of impulses or echo patterns in each were what you would expect from the geography of Dealey Plaza, is that correct? Dr. BARGER. That is correct. Mr. CORNWELL. With respect to each one, the strict probability that that one would have occurred on that tape through some random sound source would be identical, individually viewed; that is .08, .08, .08, and .08. Correct? Dr. BARGER. Well, the correlation coefficients were all .08, that is a fact. Mr. CORNWELL. The tape on which each of them appeared is, to the best of your knowledge, a genuine tape made in Dealey Plaza on November 22, or from transmissions from there on that date? Dr. BARGER. That is correct. Mr. CoRNWELL. Each of those four items appear very close, near to the line which you would expect the motorcycle to be traveling; in other words, the rate that it would travel down the street in the procession at approximately 11 miles per hour. Dr. BARGER. That is correct. Mr. CORNWELL. And independently we do know that there were shots fired in Dealey Plaza on the day at about the time that these impulses occurred on your tape. Dr. BARGER. Correct. Mr. CORNWELL. Then it would be the committee's job to apply independent evidence for each of those as an equal chance of being a genuine shot, to determine if it is genuine or if it is not. Dr. BARGER. That is correct. Mr. CORNWELL. I have no further questions. Thank you. Chairman STOKES. Thank you, counsel. The gentleman from Indiana, Mr. Fithian. Mr. FITHIAN. One question, Mr. Chairman. Can we say that the shots, as far as time sequence is concerned, that were fired in Dealey Plaza at any time during that stuck microphone, any time during that time frame, had to have occurred at the following relative sequence: The first shot as zero, the second 1.6 seconds later, the third 5.9 seconds later, or at about 7.5 seconds after the zero time frame, and the fourth .05 seconds later, or at just shy of 8 seconds in the time frame? Dr. BARGER. That is correct. Mr. FITHIAN. There is no other acoustical disturbance of the tape that could possibly be a gunshot? Dr. BARGER. We believe that the threshold that we set was low enough to accept all actual occurrences, and there were none other than those you just described, that is correct. Mr. FITHIAN. If, therefore, there were any shot that did not match this time sequence--well, to put it the other way around, there could not have been definitively, could not have been a shot in this time frame that did not match one of those four interruptions? 105 Dr. BARGER. That is correct. Mr. FITHIAN. Thank you. Chairman STOKES. Dr. Barger, at the conclusion of any witness' testimony before this committee he is entitled to a period of 5 minutes under our rules in which to explain or amplify, any way expand upon his testimony. I would like on behalf of our committee to extend 5 minutes to you at this time. Dr. BARGER. Chairman Stokes, I thank you for that. I suspect that everyone has heard quite enough of me today, and I will respectfully decline to speak at any greater length. Chairman STOKES. You have had quite a lengthy day here with us. It has indeed been a real experience for us, in not only working with you today, but previous occasions we have had to be with you, and to discuss the matter which we assigned to you for your investigation and analysis. It has indeed been a pleasure to work with you and to have had the benefit of your testimony here today. On behalf of the committee, we thank you for having appeared here with us. You are excused, sir. Dr. BARGER. Thank you, sir. Chairman STOKES. At the request of Mr. Fithian, the committee at this time calls Mr. Paul McCaghren. Mr. BLAKEY. Mr. Chairman, before Mr. McCaghren is interrogated by the committee, it occurred to me that it might be appropriate to clarify the record on one point. Much of the emphasis of the committee's testimony has focused on the validity of the third shot in an effort to establish whether there were three or four shots. There is a time span between the first and second shot that I believe was identified by Dr. Barger as approximately 1.6 seconds. The issue that I would like to bring to the committee's attention is that the existence of the expert FBI testimony indicates the minimum time in which a Mannlicher-Carcano could be operated and correctly aimed was stated twice in the Warren Commission's hearings, once by Mr. Fraser, as a minimum of 2.3 seconds. He said that was "as fast as the rifle could be operated." Mr. Shaneyfield, at a subsequent point in the record, indicated that his study indicated that the minimum the rifle could be fired was 2.25 seconds, "for two successive well-aimed shots." The committee staff has systematically made an effort to reexamine each of the underlying premises in the investigations that have preceded us, as that seemed to be the proper thing to do. When the staff learned that the time differential between the first and second shot was 1.6, and thus well below what the FBI testimony had indicated was possible for one person using the rifle, it obviously raised the specter of two gummen. Consequently, preliminary tests were undertaken to evaluate the validity of that FBI conclusion. I would like to report to the committee at this time the preliminary results of those tests. I would emphasize, too, that those tests are an ongoing proposition, and the final results will be given to the committee at a later point in time. 106 The staff, on a preliminary basis, conducted a series of tests at the Lorton firing range under the supervision of Cecil Kirk, of the Metropolitan Police Department. We learned that it was possible for a relatively untrained individual to operate a Mannlicher-Carcano in considerably less than the time stated by the FBI. One test resulted in one hit out of three at 150 feet in average times of 1.65 and 1.75. That is considerably under the estimate by the FBI. A second test performed by another individual, who informs the staff he has not used a rifle in 25 years, was able to hit three out of three in a human silhouette at 150 feet in 2.125 and 2. Again, considerably under the FBI data. I bring that information to the attention of the committee in order that an improper inference not be drawn from that aspect of Dr. Barger's testimony that deals with the time span between the first and second shot. As you indicated in the beginning of this hearing, all of the evidence is not yet in. Another area where the committee will obviously have to take evidence is on the minimum time required for the operation of a Mannlicher-Carcano. If I may summarize, it would seem that the prior assumption, the one employed by the FBI as well as the Warren Commission, of a minimum of 2.25 or 2.3 is questionable, and it will have to be reexamined by the committee before a final interpretation can be made of the time span between the first two shots. Mr. DODD. Mr. Chairman, could I address a question to Mr. Blakey. That test that we are performing now, is that being done with a Mannlicher-Carcano? Mr. BLAKEY. Yes. The committee is in the unique position for a congressional committee in that it now owns two Mannlicher-Carcanos. Mr. DODD. Of the same? Mr. BLAKEY. Of the same kind and style employed by Lee Harvey Oswald. I might add, Congressman--and I underline again its a preliminary judgment--the sharp difference in time may well be because the FBI experts were firing the rifle using the telescopic sight. One clear implication of the expert testimony that this committee has received from its firearm experts is that the gun can be accurately fired using the iron sights, and the tests that were performed this last weekend used the iron sights and not the telescopic sights. Consequently, we were able, with very little effort, to sharply improve on the expert performance of the FBI. Mr. DODD. Can you tell me whether or not the FBI used the alleged Oswald rifle? Mr. BLAKEY. The FBI did use Oswald's rifle in some of its tests. Mr. DODD. Is there some particular reason why we cannot use the same rifle? Mr. BLAKEY. I am told by our expert panel that there is some concern about the use of Oswald's rifle. It has been in the Archives 107 for a considerable period of time, and it has not been given the kind of attention that a hunter might give to his favorite weapon. There may be some question as to whether that weapon may be dangerous to employ in simulated tests now. Mr. SAWYER. Would the gentleman yield? On the firing--and I didn't examine closely that Mannlicher Carcano that was here--is that scope so mounted that there is an option of using the iron sights? Mr. BLAKEY. Yes. Mr. SAWYER. So you can use either on it? Mr. BLAKEY. You can use either the iron sights or the telescopic sights. The testimony, if you will recall, Congressman, of our ballistics panel, was that the choice that they would have made would have been to have used the iron sights. What I might add is that the Dallas Police Department sharpshooters who fired the two weapons in our reconstruction in Dallas in fact used open iron sights, and they were extremely accurate at that time. Again, Congressman, I emphasize these are preliminary tests and they will have to be perfected at a later point in time. It seemed to us, though, potentially not the best to introduce evidence and to simply allow the acoustics test to be considered without some clarification being made of that time problem between shots one and two. Chairman STOKES. The committee calls Mr. Paul McCaghren. Sir, will you raise your right hand and be sworn. You solemnly swear the testimony you give before this committee is the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth, so help you God? Mr. McCAGHREN. I do. TESTIMONY OF PAUL McCAGHREN, PAUL McCAGHREN ASSOCIATES, DALLAS, TEX. Chairman STOKES. Thank you. You may be seated. Mr. Cornwell? Mr. CORNWELL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. McCaghren, what is your present occupation? Mr. McCAGHREN. I am a private investigator and private security consultant in Dallas, Tex. Mr. CoRNwELL. You have your own firm, is that correct? Mr. McCAGHREN. Yes, I do. Mr. CORNWELL. What is the name of that firm? Mr. McCAGHREN. Paul McCaghren Associates. Mr. CORNWELL. Previously you were a member of the Dallas Police Force? Mr. McCAGHREN. Yes, I was. Mr. CORNWELL. During what period of time? Mr. McCAGHREN. From 1953 until 1974. Mr. CORNWELL. And during that period of time, what was your rank? Mr. McCAGHREN. I worked up from patrolman to detective in 1958. I was a lieutenant from 1960 to 1965 or 1966. I was a captain from 1966 to 1968. I was the director of the intelligence division in 1969. I was an assistant chief from 1970 to 1972. In 1972, I began to work my way back down. I was a captain, and I retired in 1974. 108 Mr. CORNWELL. Would you just give me a brief statement about what caused you to begin to work your way back down in 1972? Mr. McCAGHREN. A strong disagreement between myself and the then chief of police. Unfortunately, he was the chief of police and he busted me. If it had been the reverse, I would have busted him. [Laughter.] Mr. CORNWELL. Directing your attention to 1963, what was the specific nature of your assignment during that time period? Mr. McCAGHREN. In 1973? Mr. CORNWELL. 1963. Mr. McCAGHREN. I was a lieutenant, burglary and theft at that particular time. Mr. CORNWELL During 1963 or 1964, during the period of time that the Warren Commission conducted an investigation of the assassination of President Kennedy, did you as a member of the Dallas Police Force also have any role in that? Mr. McCAGHREN. Yes, I did. I was with a group of about four or five lieutenants; we were commissioned to conduct an investigation of the events occurring at that particular time. Mr. CORNWELL. And particularly what were you investigating? Mr. McCAGHERN. My particular investigation concerned the events that occurred in the basement of city hall, regarding Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby. Mr. CORNWELL. And it was sort of a small special group that was working on that investigation, is that correct? Mr. McCAGHERN. Yes, it was. Mr. CORNWELL. In addition to the question of Jack Ruby's entry into the basement, were there other issues that that group worked on? Mr. McCAGHERN. Several, yes. Mr. CORNWELL. One of them perhaps being the shooting of Officer Tippit? Mr. McCAGHERN. Yes, it was. Mr. CORNWELL. In connection with that investigation, did the group have an occasion to gather evidence? Mr. McCAGHERN. Yes, we did. Mr. CORNWELL. At the termination of the investigation, do you know what was done with the evidence? Mr. McCAGHERN. All the material in our possession was turned over to Chief Curry, who was the chief of police at that time. Mr. CORNWELL. Would you just basically tell us what types of evidence would have been contained in the package at that point? Mr. McCAGHERN. These reports were not in-depth investigations. We were trying to field the hundreds of calls that were coming into the police department at that time. It was a cursory type of investigation. It was called to an abrupt halt after about a month and a half. All of our reports were submitted to Chief Curry at that time. Mr. CORNWELL. So the material, then, would have perhaps included such things as tape recordings of the Dallas dispatcher tapes during--- Mr. McCAGHERN. Yes. Mr. CORNWELL. [continuing]. November 22, 1963? I recall, for instance, there was an issue involved with the slaying of Officer 109 Tippit, of what was said that brought him into the area where he was killed; is that correct? Mr. McCAGHREN. I am not that familiar with that particular aspect, sir. Mr. CORNWELL. All right. At any rate, the materials would in- clude interview reports and various other things; is that correct? Mr. MCCAGHREN. Yes, sir. Mr. CORNWELL. Now, after the materials were gathered in the course of this investigation, and turned over to Chief Curry, when did you next come in contact with them? Mr. MCCAGHREN. I did not see the material again until approximately 1969. It was in 1969. Chief Batchler was then the chief of police. All of this material was found in a locked filing cabinet, in a metal filing cabinet, outside of his office. He called me into his office and asked me how it got there. I did not know. I had not seen the material for years and years. He was very curious. Both of us were curious about how it got around to that particular place. The filing cabinet had been abandoned and locked up. He had caused the lock to be broken. The filing cabinet had been designated to be disposed of. When he found the material, we reviewed the material. He gave the material to me. His exact words were, "Take charge of the material. Make sure that no unauthorized person comes in contact with the material." This is exactly what happened. I did take charge of the material. He was very concerned of the fact his predecessor had removed numerous articles from the police department-- Mr. CORNWELL. And who is the predecessor? Mr. McCAGHREN [continuing]. And published this in a book. Mr. CORNWELL. The predecessor you are speaking of is Chief Curry? Mr. McCAGHREN. Chief Curry, yes. Mr. CORNWELL. So the materials were found in a locked file cabinet outside of the current chief of police's office, which of course would have been the former chief of police, Chief Curry's office. Mr. MCCAGHREN. Yes. Mr. CORNWELL. And you at that time were charged with the responsibility of safekeeping them; is that correct? Mr. MCCAGHREN. Yes; I was the director of the intelligence division at that time. Mr. CORNWELL. What did you do with the materials to discharge that assignment? Mr. McCAGHREN. At that particular time, I kept it in my office until approximately 1971, the latter part of 1971, early part of 1972. Mr. CORNWELL. And during that period of time, you had control of the documents; is that correct? Mr. MCCAGHREN. Yes, I did. Mr. CORNWELL. Or the materials. In 1971, what happened? Mr. McCAGHREN. An outside agency, a private agency under the guidance of--Chief Dyson, Assistant Chief Fulgum, and Assistant Chief Moore brought in an outside agency and permitted these people to go into our intelligence files. 110 They made pointed questions. They presented pointed questions to me about the absence of any files regarding the assassination. So, I just very quietly removed the files to my own private residence because I didn't trust the people. I am talking about Fulgum, Dyson, and Moore. Mr. CORNWELL So you took the materials to your residence and stored them there; is that correct? Mr. McCAGHREN. Yes; that is correct. Mr. CORNWELL And for how long a period of time did you maintain them at your residence? Mr. McCAGHREN. Until 19--well, until this year. By chance I knew that one of your investigators had set up an appointment with a colleague of mine, and I asked to sit in on the interview. When I was satisfied that he was who he said he was, then I told him that I had some material that he would be interested in, and sure enough, he was interested in that material. Mr. CORNWELL. You turned over a great body of material to him. That was to Jack Moriarty; is that correct? Mr. McCAGHERN. Yes; that is correct. Mr. CORNWELL And included among the material was a tape recording and a dictabelt tape which we have been discussing here today? Mr. McCAGHERN. Yes. Mr. CORNWELL. Now, throughout the period of time that the materials including the tape recording and the dictabelt were in your possession--in other words, continually from 1969, at which time they were removed from the locked filing cabinet--did you or anyone else tamper with the tape recording or the dictabelt? Mr. McCAGHERN. No, sir. I had control of this property at all times, from 1969 until this year. No one, no one tampered with that material. Mr. CORNWELL. Thank you. No further questions. Chairman STOKES. Any members of the committee have any questions? Thank you very much, sir. Mr. McCAGHERN. Thank you. Chairman STOKES. You are excused. Professor Blakey? Mr. BLAKEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As the testimony today has indicated, the committee has examined motion pictures for jiggle, and a tape for sound impulses in an effort to determine the number, time, and direction of the shots fired at President Kennedy. The committee has also considered the testimony of witnesses to the assassination itself. Specifically, it sought to determine the extent to which ear-witness accounts as to the number and direction could be relied on. For this purpose, the committee compiled all of the pertinent testimony taken soon after the assassination and had it subjected to psychoacoustical analysis, and all the testimony of 178 witnesses extracted from FBI reports and other Warren Commission documents stored at the National Archives were studied, and statistically charted. 111 In addition, the team that performed the psychoacoustical analysis went to Dallas to witness the live firing in Dealey Plaza described earlier here today. The purpose was to listen to the shots and get an on-the-scene feeling for their possible source and their magnitude. The chief scientist in the ear-witness project is Dr. David Green. Dr. Green is a professor of psychophysics and chairman of the Department of Psychology and Social Relations at Harvard University. He received a B.A. degree from the University of Chicago in 1952, and from the University of Michigan he received a B.A. degree in 1954, an M.A. degree in 1955, and a Ph.D. degree in 1958. He has been a professor of psychology at the University of California and an associate professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, and an assistant professor of psychology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Green is the author of numerous scientific publications, and he serves on the editorial boards of several scientific journals. He is a fellow of the American Psychological Association and the Acoustical Society of America. Dr. Green is the chairman of the National Research Council Committee on Hearing, Bioacoustics and Biomechanics. He has received the Acoustial Society of America's Biennial Award and a Guggenheim fellowship. He was an overseas fellow at St. John's College in Cambridge, and in 1978 he was elected to the National Academy of Science. At this time, Mr. Chairman, it would be-- Mr. FITHIAN. Would the gentleman suspend. Just for clarification, Mr. Chairman, were we not going to ask any questions of Dr. Hartmann, or does that follow this? Mr. BLAKEY. My understanding is that Dr. Hartmann will be called back to the stand at the conclusion of Dr. Green's testimony. Mr. FITHIAN. Thank you. Chairman STOKES. The committee calls Dr. Green. Doctor, will you raise your right hand and be sworn. Do you solemnly swear the testimony you give before this committee is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God? Dr. GREEN. I do. Chairman STOKES. Thank you. You may be seated. The Chair recognizes counsel for committee, Lee Matthews. Mr. MATTHEWS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. TESTIMONY OF DAVID GREEN, PROFESSOR OF PSYCHOPHYSICS AND CHAIRMAN OF THE DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIAL RELATIONS, HARVARD UNIVERSITY Mr. MATTHEWS. Dr. Green, would you begin by tracing the history and development of psychoacoustics in America? Dr. GREEN. Well, the field of psychoacoustics I think, at least modern psychoacoustics, dates from the development of electronic equipment. 112 Certainly two key events were the laboratories at the Bell Telephone Laboratories, under Dr. Fletcher, as well as the laboratory of psychophysics at Harvard University, under Dr. Stevens. At those laboratories, various experiments were performed in connection with how people hear, and concerned with devices related to how they hear, such as earphones, earplugs to protect their hearing, and the like. The psychoacoustics lab during the Second World War was specifically charged with the problem of communications in airplanes, and so they did a great deal of work on radio sets; microphones, headsets, and so forth. Mr. MATTHEWS. Would you give us some examples of how psychoacoustic analyses are conducted, and some of the conclusions that can be drawn from the experiments? Dr. GREEN. I think probably most relevant to this committee would be a brief discussion how we, how people, localize sound in space. For that purpose, a typical experiment would involve having two or more sources of sound and asking the subjects to differentiate or distinguish among the sources. So, we might sound one or another source and ask the subject to tell us which source was actually sounded. You will note that in these tests there is an element of subjectivity; that is, the observer or witness is obviously being asked a question about what he experiences. But I hope you also note that you can score these tests objectively; that is, you can actually find out whether he can distinguish between two sources located a few inches apart at a certain distance. By varying the physical parameters of the situation--that is, the distance, between the sources; or their distance from the observer-by varying the composition of the sources--that is, the sounds they make or their loudness--you can begin to understand how the subject localizes sound in space and study the variables that effect this sort of behavior in an objective fashion; that is, in a fashion that any other experimenter could presumably repeat. Mr. MATTHEWS. Now, is that primarily a subjective test or are there objective aspects of it? Dr. GREEN. Well, it is subjective in the sense that you use human observers and they make judgments. But your scoring of their responses is fundamentally objective; that is, we can all agree on whether the subjects get the correct or incorrect answer. So in that sense it is objective. Mr. MATTHEWS. Dr. Green, I want to call your attention to JFK exhibit No. F-364 that has previously been entered into the record in this case. First, are you familiar with that exhibit? Dr. GREEN. Yes, I am. I remember this morning's presentation. Mr. MATTHEWS. Can you give the committee an explanation of how human beings recognize the sound of rifle fire? Dr. GREEN. May I approach the exhibit, please? Mr. MATTHEWS. Certainly. May I also refer to JFK exhibit No. F-357 previously entered and what has been identified as JFK F-363. 113 Dr. GREEN. I will try not to be too repetitious, but I would like to review just briefly several aspects of the situation that are pertinent to how subjects localize weapon fire. As Dr. Barger pointed out this morning, this is the pressure wave, that is, this is pressure on this axis and this is time. When a weapon is fired, if it is a supersonic missile, then a shock wave is produced. That is this little N shaped blip. And then finally the muzzle blast comes in later which is the large explosive sound caused by gases coming out of the muzzle. But the shock wave is of interest when you study the localization of sound because it causes confusion as to the locus of the sound in space. That is best illustrated on this exhibit where we have the rifle here at one instant in time. It has been fired and there is a bullet along this projectory, that has reached this point in space, as a result there is a shock wave or N wave that follows the bullet. There is also a blast wave traveling at the speed of sound away from the muzzle. Now you should be familiar with roughly his sort of situation because if you will think of a boat traveling in still water, the surface wave is in fact or the bow wave of the boat is in fact like the N wave. The difference here is that this is a bullet going through air so this figure should be rotated completely around and there is really a cone that follows the bullet that creates the N wave. Meanwhile, the shot, the blast is expanding in a circle about the muzzle, at least in free space. Now if you take an observer in this position on the path of the shock wave, the shock wave which is a cone in free space passes over the observer in this direction. Therefore, the sound that sweeps over him is essentially a plane wave. For example, if he is standing in this direction, it strikes both ears at the same time. [The information follows:] 114 JFK EXHIBIT F-363 Dr. GREEN. Therefore, the observer in this situation will tend to point at the path of the bullet and perpendicular to the N wave. This is illustrated in this figure where the marksman is here and the bullet being fired in this direction and these outer lines represent the N wave at successive instances in time and the spectators pointing perpendicular to the N wave and at the path of the bullet. This is actually a fairly accurate representation of an experiment carried out by Dr. Garinther at the Aberdeen Proving Ground, and in his experiment, he had a group of subjects, about 30 or 40 subjects seated in an open field. The marksman was concealed in a truck and hence the blast wave was silenced effectively. He shot through a small opening in the truck and down a path. The observers sat in a row and they actually pointed exactly as you would expect from this diagram. This diagram also points out that while 75 percent of the observers point in a perpendicular to the N wave, at the path of the bullet, 25 percent of the observers point in exactly the opposite direction. This is called front-back confusion because the sound waves hit both ears simultaneously it is awfully confusing and you can't tell whether the source is immediately ahead or immediately in back of you. Mr. MATTHEWS. The Garinther test, and JFK exhibit No. F-363 are the exhibits you were referring to? 115 Dr. GREEN. I will have to look on the back to tell, but I think it was. Yes, it is F-363. Mr. MATTHEWS. The other exhibit that you referred to earlier is JFK exhibit No. F-357? Dr. GREEN. That is right. Mr. MATTHEWS. That exhibit contained the drawing of the shock wave and the muzzle blast wave? Dr. GREEN. That is correct. Mr. MATTHEWS. Now what difference does it make in the position of the observer in determining either the origin of the shot or path of the bullet? Dr. GREEN. Well, if the observer hears the blast wave as if he were located at a position here, this plane wave has an origin back here at the rifle. So he actually points at the source of the disturbance. If the observer does not hear the blast wave, if he localizes on the basis of the N wave, he actually points at the path of the bullet, not the origin, of the bullet, in a way dictated by this geometry, that is perpendicular to the cone of the end wave and toward the path of the bullet. So, for example, if the marksman were up here in that corner [points at one corner of room] firing into that corner [the opposite corner] and we could not hear the blast of the rifle, that is, we simply heard the N wave, we would localize the source of the sound up in the ceiling. Mr. MATTHEWS. You mentioned in regard to JFK No. F-363 that Garinther conducted an experiment in which the blast wave was concealed? Dr. GREEN. Yes, the marksman was concealed in the truck. The blast wave was suppressed and only the N wave was evident. Mr. MATTHEWS. Were any of the observers able to accurately pinpoint the point of origin for the gunman? Dr. GREEN. No, they all either pointed along the path of the bullet, 75 percent of them, and 25 percent pointed in the opposite direction. Let me make one other point clear if I can while I am at that diagram. That is, the relative contribution of the blast and N wave depends on where the observer is standing in space. If he is way down here along the path of the bullet, the blast wave is getting weaker and weaker but he is fairly close to the path of the bullet, therefore is little diminution in the N wave as it goes by. Because he is way down here in space there is a great difference in time between when the N wave passes and the blast passes so it is very possible in certain locations especially if you are located well down the path of the bullet, you hear the N wave and a long time later it is followed by the blast wave. Mr. MATTHEWS. Is there any position that an observer can stand relative to the origin of the shot, where there is a greater possibility of being able to locate the shooter? Dr. GREEN. Yes, if he is located here at the side, then the shock and the end wave and the blast wave arrive at the same time and he would point at the origin of the source, that is, the rifle in this case. 116 Mr. MATTHEWS. Can you give us some indication of the distance that the person would be from the origin of the shot, where they would hear the end wave first and then subsequently the blast? Dr. GREEN. Well down the line of the bullet. If they are well down the line of the bullet, the N wave will sweep over them first and the blast will come in later and in that case it would be very probable that they point at the N wave and ignore the blast as an echo. If they are off to the side, they will undoubtedly point at the source of the muzzle. Mr. MATTHEWS. Can you give us an opinion, based upon distance in feet, that the observer would have to be standing from the origin of the shot, to recognize the N wave and then subsequently recognize the blast? Dr. GREEN. I can't give you exact data on that subject because I don't think it has been studied in that detail, but let me review the considerations that apply. The further he is from the rifle and the closer to the bullet path the more the delay between the blast and the N wave. So, for example, if he were 300 feet, down here, the blast would lag the N wave, and if he were very near the path of the bullet, the blast would lag the N wave by half that distance 150 feet or about 150 milliseconds. In that case, it is very probable that he would hear the blast very distinctly as a second wave. Mr. MATTHEWS. Mr. Chairman, at this time I move for the admission of JFK F-363. Chairman STOKES. Without objection it may be entered into the record. Mr. MATTHEWS. Dr. Green, are there distinct sounds between the sensations of the N wave that you have described as the shock wave and that of the muzzle blast? Dr. GREEN. Definitely, and you can see some indication of how these might sound by just looking at the exhibit on the far right. The shock wave is very brief and the muzzle blast is longer in duration. Therefore, there is a great difference in pitch. The N wave sounds much higher in pitch than the blast wave. We have a tape recording of those two waves. It is a recording of a Mannlicher-Carcano firing in which we have excised from the tape examples of the shock wave and the muzzle blast. If I may, could I play those to the committee and let them hear the difference between the two sounds? Mr. MATTHEWS. Yes, Mr. Chairman, at this time I would move for the admission of JFK F-351 and JFK F-352. Chairman STOKES. Without objection they may be entered into the record at this point. [JFK exhibits F-351 and F-352 are tape recordings retained in committee files.] Mr. MATTHEWS. Dr. Green, would you explain to the members of the committee exactly what they can expect to hear from each of those exhibits? Dr. GREEN. There are three blast waves, that is the larger wave in the far right of the exhibit F-364. They are played three times. They are followed after a brief pause by three examples of an N wave played at the same peak overpressure. 117 Now, the intensities that you will hear in this room are nowhere near the intensities that you would experience if you listened to actual weapons. So you should recall that they will be much lower in intensity than anything resembling rifle or pistol fire, but nevertheless there are recordings of these two wave forms, and if we can have them at this time, you will hear three blast waves followed by three shock waves. [Tape recordings played for the committee.] Mr. MATTHEWS. Dr. Green, I believe you were present when the tape recording was played of four shots that were fired in Dealey Plaza? Dr. GREEN. I beg your pardon? Mr. MATTHEWS. You were present in the room at the time of Dr. Barger's testimony when the recording was played of shots fired in the Dealey Plaza experiment? Dr. GREEN. Yes; I was. Mr. MATTHEWS. How were those shots different from the shots that you played today on exhibit JFK F-351 and JFK F-352? Dr. GREEN. The most noticeable difference is that nobody jumped in the room, and if rifle fire occurred in this room, I am sure everybody would have left their chair, at least slightly. They are extremely quiet compared to the shots that occurred in the plaza. But, I played them merely to illustrate there is a quality of difference in the sound produced by these two types of waves. Mr. MATTHEWS. Were you able to distinguish and separate the sounds that you played on those recordings without the use of special equipment? Dr. GREEN. I am unclear as to the question, I am sorry. Mr. MATTHEWS. How were you able to obtain simply the blast itself on the recording? Dr. GREEN. They were excised from actual rifle shots. We stood in a position where there would be a sufficient time difference between them and then cut them out of the tape and pasted them in the sequence that you heard them. So they are artifically prepared so that it would be clear that N wave and blasts waves could be distinguished. Mr. MATTHEWS. Dr. Green, I want to call your attention to JFK F-361 and ask you whether or not you recognize this exhibit? Dr. GREEN. It is an aerial photograph of Dealey Plaza. Mr. MATTHEWS. On August 20 of this year you had occasion to be present at the time of the acoustic analysis testing in Dealey Plaza? Dr. GREEN. Yes; I and two observers went to Dallas and observed during the sequence of shots that Dr. Barger has already described. The two observers were Prof. Frederick Wightman, an associate professor of audiology in the Department of Communicative Disorders at Northwestern University. He has had considerable experience in the field of sound localization and has contributed many papers and literature on that topic. The other observer was Prof. Dennis McFadden of the Psychology Department of the University of Texas at Austin. He also has a long history of research in the field of sound localization and has contributed many papers on that topic. 118 Mr. MATTHEWS. Now, the purpose of the three of you all being there primarily was to determine what the witnesses heard who had been spectators of the Presidential motorcade on November 22, 1973; is that correct? Dr. GREEN. That is correct. We observed in several different locations within the Plaza and compared the apparent locus of the sound and blasts that we heard and attempted to correlate them with reports gleaned from the witnesses, after the assassination. Mr. MATTHEWS. Dr. Green, I want to call your attention to JFK Exhibit F-344 and F-337, both of which have previously been entered into evidence and ask you to approach the podium and indicate the relative position where you and the observers stood during the experiment and the reasons why you selected that particular position. Dr. GREEN. You will recall there were three sequences of shots that were going to be fired and for the first sequence we were situated about in this position on the grassy knoll, about halfway down the slope. We decided for the first sequence that the observers would stay together, that is, I had them located about three feet from one another and as they filled out their responses to each of the test shots, I would check their responses to see to what degree they were consistent. As a result of this first sequence it was apparent that they were very consistent and that we could gain more information by separating the observers. So for later test shots we observed some of the test shots together right under the Texas Book Depository in the second sequence. For the third sequence of shots Professor Wightman and I were situated down here and Professor McFadden was situated on the railroad overpass in about this position in this exhibit while the third sequence was fired. Mr. MATTHEWS. During the course of the first sequence what degree of accuracy was there between the two assistants? Dr. GREEN. There were 12 shots shown in the sequence, but because there were 5 test shots that preceded the sequences that were run off here, there was a total of 17 shots fired and the observers, Wightman and McFadden, they rated all of the 17 test shots, they were in agreement on 94 percent of their responses. Their locations were the same, their reports of reverberations were identical, and their reports of the loudness were virtually the same. Mr. MATTHEWS. Did you know at the time the shots were being fired, what was the position of the rifle? Dr. GREEN. I knew the key but even I was somewhat at a loss to know where we were within the sequence. Because there were test shots preceding the sequence and occasionally some of the shots would be retired because the recording equipment was malfunctioning or something and I was not in communication with anybody concerning the number of the sequence during the shots so they were essentially unaware of what shot was going to be fired next. Mr. MATTHEWS. Would you explain to the committee exactly what they heard during the process of those tests. Dr. GREEN. Well, they were seated here in the first sequence, for example, and the first shot would be out here on target one. And immediately thereafter they would write down where they thought 119 the shot occurred, comment about any other apparent echoes or confusions that might have occurred, rate the loudness of the sound, and any other comments that they thought pertinent. As I say, they agreed in that first sequence virtually 100 percent of the time. There was one shot that McFadden heard, it was the second shot No. 11 at target 3, and he localized that over at this old courthouse. If you draw the path of the bullet and point at the N wave, that would point at the old courthouse. That was the only response that McFadden differed from Dr. Wightman and the only one where he was inaccurate. Mr. MATTHEWS. When each of your assistants stood in the assigned places, did it make any difference which direction they were facing at the time of the shots? Dr. GREEN. Not so much in this position, but when you are situated immediately under the Texas School Book Depository, which was our general location for the second sequence of shots, two things are rather confusing. First of all, the N wave comes right over your head so you tend to localize the source directly over your head or on occasion you directly localize the source in whatever direction you were facing. You could, for example, move your head into different directions. I once looked down Elm Street in this direction fairly well convinced that the sound came from this direction, and the other observers did likewise, pointed their heads in different directions and said that that influenced their judgments. Also when you are in this location the sound sweeps down the building and the apparent source of the sound is rather large, probably because it scattered off the regular surface of the building. That was caused by the blast wave. Mr. MATTHEWS. At any time during the testing did your assistants confuse the sounds of the N wave and blast with any sounds of echoes or reverberations? Dr. GREEN. They certainly made some inaccurate responses. I would say in the order of 10 percent, and most of those could be accounted for on the basis of the confusion of the blasts and the shock wave. On other occasions, for example, in this location where we are a good distance from the sixth floor window of the Texas Book Depository, and that was the source of the rifle blasts, it is fairly easy here to hear both shock and blast waves. They occurred with sufficient delay from one another that Wightman, for example, would write down that the N wave appeared somewhere in the air over the knoll and the blast would come from the Texas School Book Depository. Mr. MATTHEWS. Now what is it that you had your assistants identify, both the N wave and the muzzle blast or just simply the rifle shot? Dr. GREEN. They tried to report what they heard and also tried to make a guess as to what was the location of the actual weapon, but in this case it was just very easy for Wightman to distinguish the two so he kept writing down on his score sheet that the click, the N wave, appeared to have a locus somewhere over the knoll. Standing here the N wave was coming down and hitting targets down here, or in the case of the Main Street shots, way down here, 120 so he would localize it up in space there. Then he would comment that in addition when the blast came in, it came from the Texas School Book Depository. Mr. MATTHEWS. They were identifying each of the sounds they heard? Dr. GREEN. Yes. Mr. MATTHEWS. It may have been two sounds--the muzzle blast--- Dr. GREEN. They also commented about echoes, et cetera. For example, in this position from the knoll, we were sufficiently up the knoll, that we heard a very strong echo off the post office annex that came in about a second later. In this position you hear a very strong echo off the triple underpass and McFadden in this position heard the strong echo off this array of buildings along Houston Street. Mr. MATTHEWS. Which of the assistants did you have standing in the area south of the TSBD Building, the grassy area right across from Elm Street? Dr. GREEN. I stood there with Wightman. Mr. MATTHEWS. And the area immediately north of that known as the grassy knoll? Dr. GREEN. All three of us stood there for the first sequence of shots. Mr. MATTHEWS. What did they observe at that time as to the sequence of the shots? Dr. GREEN. With the exception of McFadden who we think confused the N wave and pointed to the courthouse, they all scored 100 percent, that is, they could correctly locate the source of the sound. Any rifle shot from the Knoll was quite evident. It was a very, very loud sound. You almost jumped when the rifle was fired from such a close distance. We were within probably 30 to 40 feet of the muzzle blast. The pistol was quieter and it was subsonic so it did not produce an N wave. It was extremely easy to localize because it was such a relatively small sound compared with the massive blasts of the rifle. Mr. MATTHEWS. Mr. Chairman, at this time I move for the admission of JFK F-361. Chairman STOKES. Without objection it may be entered into the record at this point. [The information follows:] 121 JFK EXHIBIT F-361 Mr. MATTHEWS. Dr. Green, what were some of your first research and analysis in this case? Dr. GREEN. The first work I did was, I looked at a statistical survey prepared by Josiah Thompson from his book, Six Seconds in Dallas--I think that was the name of it--in which he compiled some of the witness' testimony as to the locus of the shots. I was slightly confused concerning that analysis and somewhat doubtful of it because of what I have tried to review concerning the apparent location of weapon firing. He claimed a low percentage of his respondents' recording anything other than the Texas Book or the knoll as the potential location of the rifle. Sixty-six percent in his analysis reported they didn't know, and only 3 percent reported that any other location other than the Texas Book or the knoll. Mr. MATTHEWS. Mr. Chairman, at this time I would move for the admission of JFK F-360, the chart that was composed by the committee staff. I would add, Mr. Chairman, that it was composed based upon the number of witnesses at Dealey Plaza whose location could be pinpointed and who could give pertinent information relating to the number of shots and the spacing of those shots and the origin of those shots. This information was taken from the official files and reports of law enforcement agencies and from testimony before the Warren Commission. Chairman STOKES. Without objection it may be entered into the record at this point. [The information follows:] 122 JFK Exhibit F-360 Mr. MATTHEWS. Dr. Green, I direct your attention to JFK exhibit No. F-360. Are you familiar with that chart? Dr. GREEN. Yes, that is a chart that I prepared based on the analysis that you provided. Along the columns of the matrix there are reports on the number of shots the witnesses heard. For example, along the top some of the witnesses, 17, reported that there were 2 shots out of a total of 178. The vast majority, almost 77 percent, 132 out of 178, reported that there were 3 shots fired. Along the rest of the matrix are the lists of the place of the origin of the shots as reported by the spectators, that is, the Texas School Book Depository was pointed to by 46 out of 178 respondents. The knoll was pointed to by 20. The other response, that is, other than the knoll or the Texas Book, 29 spectators, and 76 subjects, about 44 percent, reported that they did not know the location of the shots. Mr. MATTHEWS. Would you make a comparison of the data obtained in this research and the results of the information obtained 123 from your field tests, then can you make a determination of which of these witnesses would have been correct in localizing the shots? Dr. GREEN. No; I don't think you can, for the reasons that I tried to outline earlier because a variety of determinants actually influence the judgment. In some cases the way the subject was facing, in other cases whether he heard the blast or the N wave and made his localization judgment based on the former or the latter. What I have tried to do in the interior in that table in the actual entries in the table is to test the assumption that there is essentially independence between where the witnesses point as the origin of the shot and the number of shots that they report. So what I have done in that table is essentially assume that the two judgments are completely independent and try to predict how many subjects would fall in each cell of that matrix on the basis of that assumption of independence. So, for example, using that assumption in the upper lefthand corner there, you see that there were three subjects that in fact pointed at the Texas School Book Depository and reported they heard two shots point under the assumption of independence you would expect 4.6 to be the number, et cetera. You can see by the close correspondence between the numbers in brackets and the bold numbers above them that you can essentially assume independence between the two types of judgments. If you entertain the hypothesis that only people who could hear that the shot came from the knoll might be expected to hear the fourth shot, the three others coming from the Book Depository, you might expect that assumption of independence would be violated, but as you can see, there is no evidence in that table to indicate that that is the case. Mr. MATTHEWS. Now after completing the research analysis and the field tests in this case, have you had an opportunity to confer with your associates in this matter? Dr. GREEN. Well, after the tests, we discussed for 3 or 4 hours what we had heard and talked about what we had heard with respect to the reports that we had seen from the witnesses. I also drafted a preliminary report which they have seen and essentially concur with. I think we are in general agreement about the results of this test. Mr. MATTHEWS. Based upon that research, will you give your opinion to the committee today as to final conclusions? Dr. GREEN. I think the first conclusion is that we were very surprised at the loudness of the sounds that we heard. We had read reports from the witnesses of firecracker-like sounds and the like. These gunshots were truly enormous in intensity, as you could see from some of the numbers that Dr. Barger reported this morning, the peak overpressures of these waves are very large. I might add that throughout the first and second tests we attempted to simulate some of the noise in the Plaza by running a motorcycle. Actually, we had three motorcycles present and we ran the motorcycles to provide masking noise during the test, but it soon became apparent that the motorcycles were unnecessary. They did not mask any of the important sounds we observed. The rifle blasts clearly overcame them. They simply prevented us from 124 having conversation with each other so we dispensed with them in the latter sequence of tests. We are simply unable to offer any explanation for why some of the observers reported these relatively small sounds when we know the intensities and loudness produced by the Mannlicher-Carcano. Several witnesses were hunters and they reported rifle blasts, but there were several others who reported the sounds to be extremely small. The second conclusion would be to comment again about the consistency of the observers. They were extremely consistent in their responses. In general they were fairly accurate, probably in the 90 percent range. This may be due to the fact that they are well practiced in this sort of task. It may also be due to the fact that they knew that the rifles were going to be fired, whereas the spectators were caught largely unaware, or it may be due to the emotional response of the subjects that occurred after the first or second shots were fired. Unfortunately, I know of no research, no evidence that would indicate how that would affect their judgments so I simply cannot comment on those differences. But our subjects, and our witnesses, were remarkably consistent. The third thing I would mention is that there are strong reverberations and echoes present in the plaza. For the most part, these did not cause confusion among our witnesses because they occurred sufficiently late in time so that they were clearly recognized as echoes, the echo off the post office annex building for example, arrived about nine-tenths of a second late. It was clearly heard as an echo off the post office annex building. Probably a more potential source of confusion was the echo off the railroad underpass, especially when you are located immediately under the Texas School Book Depository, because the N wave coming over your head out of the Depository is very confusing so you are sort of startled and nothing makes much sense, especially if you think the sound is right up above your head. So the first sound that arrives from any object on the ground comes from the railroad underpass. I think I also commented that from the railroad itself there are strong echoes off the buildings on Houston Street. A fourth thing I would comment on, that I have touched on already any sort of a knoll shot, whether it be rifle or pistol--and these were both unsilenced weapons, but I am not sure that makes a great deal of difference--any sort of knoll shot when observed from at least several locations, particularly the knoll itself, immediately across from the knoll, and to some extent below the Texas Book Depository, is a very easy place to localize sound. That is a shot from the knoll is usually heard as a shot from the knoll. There were few errors on that. In fact, I don't think there were any errors on that particular shot. So if there was a shot from the knoll, it is extremely easy to localize it at the knoll. Finally, I would like to make one observation that I think is inconsistent with the argument that there were three shots from the Texas Book Depository and one from the knoll. That is, if there were any shots from the Texas School Book Depository and at least one from the knoll, one might expect, since these judgments are 125 not all that difficult, that many subjects would report two sources for the locus of the shots, that is, they would report both the Texas Book Depository and the knoll as places from which weapons were fired. If you go over the statistical survey of the 178 observers who gave reports, there are exactly 4 that mentioned dual locations, that is, that say the locus of the shots came from two places. I find that a strikingly low number given the hypothesis that the weapons were actually fired from two places. We found that it was comparatively easy to localize knoll shots, at least from the knoll, across from the knoll; and to some extent under the Texas School Depository, and there was little doubt in the vicinity of the Depository that a shot was fired from that building. I think that concludes it. Mr. MATTHEWS. Did it make any difference in localizing the origin of the shot where the target was? Dr. GREEN. It changed the character of the sound somewhat because in various locations you would either hear N wave or not. So I would not say that it did not make any difference, but as to the localization response, it generally was not terribly important. Mr. MATTHEWS. Mr. Chairman, I have no further questions. Chairman STOKES. The first questioning of the witness is to be by Mr. Fithian. We have a vote on the floor. So I think we will recess for about 5 minutes and then we will resume questioning the witness. [A brief recess was taken.] Mr. FITHIAN [presiding]. The committee will come to order. Mr. Matthews? Mr. MATTHEWS. Dr. Green, you were present during the course of Dr. Barger's testimony, and if you recall, he mentioned that some of the shots fired from the TSBD building were from a position within 2 or 3 feet inside the window. What effect would that have had upon the witness' opinion of the origin of the shots? Dr. GREEN. The intention of that manipulation was to suppress to some extent the blast wave and to make the N wave more noticeable compared to the blast wave. I would say it was marginally successful, but perhaps because of the sophistication of my subjects they all reported they generally heard the blast with some minor exceptions. When Dr. McFadden was on the railroad overpass the farthest distance from the Texas Book Depository, and the target was No. 4 which is almost again the railroad overpass down there on the bottom, he was often confused and heard a source directly up Main Street, he said. So I am not sure what he heard, whether he heard an N wave. The cone of the N wave didn't sweep over him but some part of the N wave may have still reached him, but in any case he made that observation. But for the most part, it would be difficult to detect from the data itself whether the manipulation of moving the rifle muzzle back had any effect. It was our impression that it made the N wave 126 more evident, but whether we knew that should happen and therefore heard it or whether it actually happened I am not sure. Mr. MATTHEWS. Thank you, Dr. Green. I have no further questions, Mr. Chairman. Mr. FITHIAN. Dr. Green, with regard to the original ear witnesses, I had to step out for two votes and perhaps you covered this, but I am curious to know whether or not you can tell us anything about the probability of accuracy of those individuals. Dr. GREEN. I did comment on that while you were gone. The short answer is: I can't contribute very much. All of the experiments that contribute to our knowledge about localization are done in these rather routine and repetitive tests where you essentially put two sound objects at some distance, play one or the other, and ask the subject to tell you which one occurred. So in these cases the subject is always well aware that there are a limited number of sound sources and he knows what discrimination he is supposed to make and he makes it over and over repetitively. Whereas, in the situation we are talking about here, of course, everybody was surprised by the first shot. I really can't say what effect that would have. There is no available literature on that sort of situation and it would be largely speculation on my part. There are some experiments where the range of signal alternatives is not known to the subject. In this case these are detection experiments, trying to detect a weak sound in noise as a matter of fact, and the fact that the subject doesn't know which sound to expect does not make as much difference as you might expect. The difference is about a decibel. Mr. FITHIAN. There has been a great deal of testimony by individuals and not a little literature indicating that a fair body of people who identified the sound indicated that the sounds came from two different directions, a very significant number as I recall, 40-some, testified that they heard shots which came from--and they pointed or otherwise indicated what came to the Texas School Depository window, and something in excess of one-half dozen identified the grassy knoll and in fact some policemen apparently took off toward the grassy knoll and other eyewitnesses said they saw a puff of smoke from the grassy knoll, et cetera. What I am trying to elicit from you is any help your expertise can give us in sorting out the validity of the ear and eyewitness testimony that we have in the Warren Commission report. Dr. GREEN. Let me go back to your first statement because I think we seem to be in disagreement about facts if I heard you correctly. There were very few subjects who reported two locations were the source of the sound. I know of only 4 in the list of 178. There were a large number of subjects who reported they didn't know or were confused by the echo's reverberations, et cetera. I have tried to point out that the rifle blast particularly, because of the N wave, creates a very confusing acoustic stimulus and you are liable to point at the N wave. Whether that makes any sense or not is another matter. You can point at the sky for example, if you were down on the street level and the path of the bullet goes over your head and I 127 would think you would then report you don't know the source of the sound because it is very confusing for the sound to be up in the sky. If you take a single subject out of the plaza and ask me on the basis of his report would he be likely to be more accurate than any other subject, I simply could not say there is any more likelihood that one subject would be more accurate than another. Mr. FITHIAN. If you will suspend for just one moment, Dr. Green, I would like to have entered into the record JFK F-362 and have it displayed on the easel for a couple of questions of the witness. [The information follows:] JFK EXHIBIT F-362 Mr. FITHIAN. Now, Counsel Cornwell, in the preliminary analysis made of this chart there seems to be some confusion about the numbers. Could you first of all clarify, since the total of 90 in the lower righthand corner does not equal the total number of ear witness accounts we have, how exactly this chart was constructed? Mr. CORNWELL. The difference between the two charts, first, is that the chart that Dr. Green has previously made reference to includes persons scattered all over the plaza. The second chart has a more limited function. It was designed to facilitate direct focus upon the reported origin of shots from those persons who stood in the same areas of the plaza that Dr. Green and his listeners stood. Therefore, the figure "90" in the chart which was just put up is a smaller number than the total number of observations, 171, reported in the earlier chart. The 90 figure is a very restrictive one. It is taking the basic four areas that Dr. Green's listeners stood; namely, in the grassy triangle, on the knoll, in front of the TSBD, in the railroad overpass, and on Elm Street, and simply selecting those persons who we knew were standing in those areas and 128 reporting where they said, for each of the areas, the shots originated. Mr. FITHIAN. Now, Dr. Green, whether we use your figures, that is, the figures in the chart already introduced, or the one just introduced, we get several people, 7 in the latter and I believe 20 in the former, who identified the grassy knoll as the source. Is that correct? Dr. GREEN. That is correct. Mr. FITHIAN. From all you know about where the shots were fired and applying the science of your training, could that many people, wherever they were located, identify the shots as deriving from the grassy knoll in the absence of a shot from that area? Dr. GREEN. In my opinion, easily. Certainly the long shots, especially if you take those subjects that are further up Elm toward the Book, could have very easily confused the N wave. The N wave is in front of them. They make a front-back confusion and they will point to the knoll. I counted a total of something like 10 subjects that point toward the Knoll that stood in that area. I am a little more generous in my definition of knoll than this chart that has been introduced. But there are about 10 people. There are a few people scattered over the rest of the plaza that also report the knoll. There are two or three in the Book, several down in the triangle, one on the railroad tracks, a couple by the courthouse, et cetera. I don't find it surprising that some of those people; that is, a relatively small percentage, could point at the knoll despite the fact that nothing was fired from the knoll. What I do find more surprising is what I stated as my final conclusion, that if there was somebody firing from the knoll, and anybody firing anyplace else, why more people didn't hear both shots. As I said, only 4 out of the total of 178 heard two shots as the locus. Mr. FITHIAN. Thank you. Does counsel have any further questions? Mr. MATTHEWS. I have none, Mr. Chairman. Mr. FITHIAN. With the possibility that those who dashed out to vote on veteran's preference might want to recall you, I think we will excuse you now. Under the rules of the committee, you are entitled to 5 additional minutes to clarify, amplify, and in any way modify your testimony here today. Dr. GREEN. I have had plenty of time. Thank you very much. Mr. FITHIAN. Thank you. Dr. Green, just before you move away, I am not sure whether Congressman Dodd has any questions or not. Mr. DODD. I don't immediately here, but I know both the chairman and Judge Preyer are coming right in. Mr. FITHIAN. Why don't you just remain seated there and let's bring Dr. Hartmann up. I would like to ask the staff to put up the appropriate jiggle analysis charts that we used this morning. I think they are unnumbered. Mr. CORNWELL. I think they are No. 177. 129 Mr. DODD. Mr. Chairman, before you move on, maybe I could address a question to our last witness, if I could. Dr. Green, as I understand it, you earlier testified that with respect to any one subject, you could not say whether or not he or she would be more or less likely accurate; is that correct? Dr. GREEN. That is correct. I think I stated if you took a single subject out of the plaza and asked me if he or she were more or less likely to report the correct locus of the shot, I would not be able to say. Mr. DODD. Are you familiar with the testimony of Governor and Mrs. Connally when they testified before this committee several days ago? Dr. GREEN. I have read a newspaper report of it. Mr. DODD. Just to refresh your memory, they indicated they felt quite clearly that the shots came from their right rear. What I am asking you is: Based on the statement that I just read as what I understood to be a paraphrase of your feelings, whether or not your inability to make a judgment on individual accuracy precludes you from aiding this committee in making a judgment on the accuracy of both the Governor's and his wife's statements as to the number of shots in addition to the direction. Dr. GREEN. I am glad you brought that up because I looked at my testimony and see I didn't say much about the number of shots compared with my remarks about their locus and that is because I know of practically no literature on the topic. Experiments on subjects, guessing the number of loud sounds are, to my knowledge, lacking. So I don't really know what to say about the accuracy of those numbers. I have no way of giving you even a rough guess as to the accuracy. I have heard informal reports that sometimes they are very inaccurate. My initial impression, looking at those numbers, was that the high numbers were obviously confusion with echoes; that is, there was one subject who reported eight shots and I presume he simply confused some of the echoes off some of the buildings. But I could not really tell you how accurate the judgment of the numbers is. I know of no literature on this. Mr. DODD. And you are stating for us as well that to the best of your knowledge there is no body of knowledge or information that' we could seek out that would assist us in making that kind of an evaluation dealing with numbers now? Dr. GREEN. Not to my knowledge. Mr. DODD. Fine. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Chairman STOKES. Does counsel have anything further? Mr. MATTHEWS. No, Mr. Chairman. Chairman STOKES. Dr. Green, at the conclusion of a witness' testimony before our committee we extend him 5 minutes in which he may in any way explain or amplify or expand on his testimony in any way. I would like to extend 5 minutes to you at this time for that purpose. Mr. DODD. If I may, Mr. Chairman, before you get that chance to refuse that offer, I asked you about direction and numbers. You responded in numbers, and I also wanted to ask that same question with regard to the Governor and Mrs. Connally's statement about direction of shots. 130 Dr. GREEN. The thing that makes my testimony uncertain is that the subjects that I took to the plaza were extremely accurate. They did not find these discriminations difficult. The question at issue is my observers were expecting the shots, they knew they were coming. They didn't know the order but they knew they were coming from two locations. They were trained observers. If you have a subject that is unprepared for the shots, that is quite a different issue. I don't know how to extrapolate for that situation. I have commented that there is no available data on that sort of situation. There are certain locations that are best for observing certain shots and in the general region of the book depository, right on the street beneath it, in our opinion it was extremely easy to tell it came from the book. There was a massive sound to the right and rear that sort of crawled down the building, presumably due to scatter on the regular surface of the building and it was quite evident. So I am not at all surprised at Governor and Mrs. Connally's report, but I can also look at the charts and there were other people standing near there, and some are pointing at the knoll when that event occurred. So I can't tell you what circumstances led to that judgment other than to suggest that this is a complicated stimulus, that it depends in that location somewhat on where your head is pointed, for example. Other factors could also enter the judgment. Mr. DODD. Fine. Thank you. Chairman STOKES. Dr. Green, you have 5 minutes. Dr. GREEN. I have already refused your kind offer once and I will do so again. Chairman STOKES. All right. Well, thank you very much for appearing here and giving us the benefit of your testimony. You are excused. The Chair now recognizes Mr. Fithian for further examination of Dr. Hartmann. Mr. FITHIAN. Dr. Hartmann, I really don't have very many questions and I don't think it will take long. Are the jiggle analysis techniques used by yourself and your associates for your presentation here today common interpretation techniques? In other words, what I am asking is: Have they been used to help interpret photos and films other than those from Dealey Plaza? Dr. HARTMANN. I think the correct answer is no. In fact, I would like to emphasize that unlike much of the scientific data that you are getting such as on the acoustic work or the neutron activation analysis, this kind of technique does not have some scientific tradition of routine measurements, you do the measurements this way, this way, this way, and you get such and such an answer. Here we were much more in a situation of making a common sense hypothesis at the beginning, meaning based on our common experience that a person is likely to react and the best information which I mentioned in my testimony indicates that people do react to that sort of thing and we tried to measure the film to see if there was a reaction, looked at each step as we went along and got the results I showed you. 131 Mr. FITHIAN. To the best of your knowledge did the Warren Commission employ this technique? Dr. HARTMANN. I believe they did not. I think that the frame 210 that they identified was identified solely on criteria of some FBI agents estimating when a wound occurred and also that they constrained their shot times by this tree which grew in front of the window. They tended not to want to call for a shot when the President was behind this tree. Mr. FITHIAN. Let's take the Zapruder film and give me the best estimate of your analysis. If any of the shots that were fired, whether they were three or four or two, if any of those shots were closer to Zapruder than the others, would you expect the blur or the jiggle or whatever the three of you were analyzing according to your own technique to be more pronounced than the more distant shots? Dr. HARTMANN. I am not sure I can give you a firm answer on the basis of any psychological theory about how the man would have reacted except to indicate one of my own observations. I think I was the only one in the group who stood on Zapruder's pedestal. That is not far from where the others were in the sequence of shots as was just indicated. But I stood on Zapruder's pedestal during that whole first sequence and the shots from the depository, this is my framework, I am looking out at the street. I had the sensation of a very large sound filling the street area up the street toward depository but the shots from the knoll were extremely loud in this ear and left my right ear ringing and my left ear not ringing. So I had a very strong sensation from that shot, so I would have expected the witness to be more definite that there was something to the right if there had been a shot fired there. Mr. FITHIAN. Assuming that the intensity of the unexpected noise has something to do with the amount of reaction of the subject, which I take it is what you just said, is there anything that we can learn, looking at your chart, as to the possibility that any of the shots came from the grassy knoll? Dr. HARTMANN. I believe not because there are clearly reactions or jiggles. I should not even say reactions because we don't know that every jiggle is a reaction to something. Some of the jiggles may be ordinary panning areas. There are clearly jiggles of different magnitude on there. What we don't know is whether there are several kinds of stimulating jiggles. By that I am trying to say that there is the classic involuntary startle reaction which is going to produce jiggles. There may be an emotional reaction following that caused by what the man sees through his viewfinder. There may be an emotional reaction caused by what he perceives is going on. The instant where he perceives there is actual gunfire going on here in this plaza in front of me may change his bodily reaction. I think it is very hard to say. Mr. FITHIAN. Is that a possible explanation of the fact that clear over to the righthand corner of your own chart the disturbances are not only greater amplitude up and down, if you want to use that term, but more pronounced from there on out to the end of the chart? 132 Dr. HARTMANN. Yes, I think we definitely have that. I should have said that earlier this morning. From 310 onward, which as you say is the righthand corner of those last three charts, Mr. Zapruder has recognized what happened and that is based on his own testimony, as I understand it. He said that he saw the wound, he saw the President's head explode and he reacted very violently to that. If I interpreted his testimony accurately, he began crying out shortly after that. As I reread the testimony, I could not confirm he was crying out or speaking as he ran the camera, although he says he cried out something like "They killed him" at the end of the sequence. He said he reacted very strongly. I am sure that that is what all that jiggle is at the end. Mr. FITHIAN. So from your scientific analysis that could either have been started, that first major one could have been started by a shot closer at hand and therefore louder or by what he perceived through the lens. Is that what you are saying? Dr. HARTMANN. It could have been. One can get even into the problem of whether there may be other gunfire stimulae buried in all that jiggle at the end. I don't think we can tell, but something clearly initiated that last sequence at 310. Mr. FITHIAN. Just two small points: Did you view in any of the films that you viewed any motorcycles in the parade? Dr. HARTMANN. Are you referring to the question raised during Dr. Barger's testimony whether a motorcycle might have caught up to the car? Mr. FITHIAN. No. I was asking whether you viewed any motorcycles at all. Dr. HARTMANN. Yes; sir, clearly at the beginning of the parade you see the motorcycles coming around the corner alongside the car and they stayed behind the car during much of the filmed sequence. Mr. FITHIAN. During your analysis of the film did any of the motorcycles seem to be catching up or moving forward in their relative position in the parade? Dr. HARTMANN. Not by any substantial amount, no. Mr. FITHIAN. Mr. Chairman, I have no further questions of the witness. Chairman STOKES. The time of the gentleman has expired. The gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. Preyer. Mr. PREYER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I may have missed some of your testimony on the vote and I may be asking very simple questions, but from my understanding, does your jiggle analysis, when you match it with the Zapruder film, indicate a corresponding peak or reaction in your tape at the moments when President Kennedy was hit by two shots? Dr. HARTMANN. Yes. Of course, the jiggle analysis comes only from the frames in the film. I think the conservative interpretation of that second chart from the left, which is the summary chart, is that it shows a violent set of jiggles initiated after what we know to be the fatal head shot and that we could characterize an earlier group of jiggles around frames 190 to 200. We know that the President apparently responded to this back wound about a second after that. 133 So I think we could infer that those two sets of jiggles are connected with the two shots that caused the wounds. Mr. FITHIAN. If the gentleman would yield, I wonder if we might not introduce Mr. Chairman into evidence JFK exhibit 177A which I think would have applied to that last question and answer, but it has not been introduced yet today. Chairman STOKES. Without objection it may be entered into the record at this point. [The information follows:] JFK EXHIBIT F-177A Mr. PREYER. So that that exhibit indicates clearly the head shot. Dr. HARTMANN. Yes. May I go over and-- Mr. PREYER. Surely. Dr. HARTMANN. If I may, to answer your question, I think I can summarize what I perceive is the situation that we have right now. Derived from the film is the fact that the photographer jiggled his camera at these times. And if we first look at it in a very broad-brush sense, we see there is a cluster of jiggling going on here and a cluster going on here. Those jiggles are fixed compared to what is happening in the motorcade and with respect to some time scale. Now, floating free in space, or in time, on an unknown time scale, on a time scale which we don't know how it is connected to that diagram, is this spacing of shots, which the acoustics people have come up with. The question is how do these fit. These shots could be anywhere along here. We can slide them along. But we cannot start this far back because then we don't have any shots up here to cause that first one. So we have to start sliding forward. Frame 310 is right in here. So we know that there was a trigger pulled at that time. We could line up No. 3 or No. 4. No. 3 has perhaps been questioned a little bit more, and there is no medical evidence that the shot that hit the head came from the knoll. So perhaps No. 4 is the better lineup. Mr. DODD. Would the gentleman yield at that point. Mr. PREYER. All right. Mr. DODD. You are stating with a pretty definitive assertion there that the trigger was pulled. What you are suggesting is not in fact that a trigger was pulled, but that something caused Mr. Zapruder at that point to wiggle the camera. Dr. HARTMANN. No, sir. I think we can say that the trigger was pulled, because we see in frame 313 the matter ejected from the head, the head explosion. And in 314 it is flying on up. So if we run it backward--314, 313, 312--the bullet is hitting the head. And then we have to allow about two frames flight time for the bullet. On that basis I say that the trigger was pulled, a trigger was pulled at 310 plus or minus one. So I would say there must be some sound source starting at 310 plus or minus one. 134 Now, I would like to work it all the way back to the trigger being pulled, because presumably that is a fixed point in space, as opposed to tying it to impacts on the motorcade which is moving so that we have a firmer fix on it. So let me say here is a time when there must have been a loud report originating from someplace. Presumably it is the depository, because that matches the acoustic evidence. Now, the correct number of milliseconds after that, a reasonable number of milliseconds after that, based on the startle reaction, psychological experiments that I quoted from the literature earlier this morning, a reasonable number of milliseconds after that the cameraman starts jiggling. So that makes sense. Now, the situation is does it make sense up at that end. And in the very broad-brush sense, or if we put on our rosy glasses or diffusing glasses or something, I think you could say yes, the acoustic analysis says there are events up here at this end and the jiggle analysis says there are some events up here at this end, before 200, and not at 210, for example, and not between 210 and 313, which is where the Warren Commission tended to put shots. So in that sense we have got something new, and we have got some agreement that something is happening up at this end. And a final sort of broad-brush statement is that I think you will be hearing tomorrow, if I understand, in the testimony sequence quite a bit of interesting evidence, photo evidence, from other members of the photo panel, that a number of very interesting things happen up in here from about 160 or even 150 to about 200--people turning, people who were running along, stopping and looking, this kind of thing, if we watch the crowd action in the background. So in that sense we have got new results and we have got something that looks interesting and is consistent. If you now try to get into the detailed fitting of this jiggle pattern to one of these sounds, I think it gets a little bit more difficult. There probably are several things to be remembered about that. One is there is some uncertainty attaching to the fixing of these times, as I understand it. Maybe a couple of tenths of a second. That is what is meant when I drew these things as kind of fuzzy bars, that they are not just precise fixed instants. So you maybe get to slide this a little bit. Maybe I can slide this one around our 310 fiducial mark. And the more I push it, the more unhappy the acoustic people would get presumably. But I can push it a little bit in that direction, and that moves it a little bit up in front of this jiggle, and that makes sense. The other thing that you can consider is, is it possible that either the movie camera or the tape or both are running at a slightly different time rate than what we timed them. The camera has always traditionally been timed at 18.3 frames per second. But could that be 19 or 17, something like that? Mr. PREYER. Could it have been running at that speed that day? Dr. HARTMANN. We don't really know the answer to that. But that correction would have the effect not of shifting by the small 135 uncertainty, but by pretending this thing was drawn on rubber and allowing you to stretch it or compress it by a small amount. We have put our heads together about this and have thought that perhaps 8 percent or something like that might not be unreasonable. And that would get you another 10 frames or something like that up at this end. So that you could imagine possibly stretching this thing so that these things moved another 10 frames forward. If you did that, then you could start making a case that this shot initiated this jiggle cluster, perhaps even this shot initiated this jiggle here. It would be interesting to see. But we don't have any data, it is not here. I might also just make a final comment, that all of this would make people who have looked at the previous assassination material I think be surprised, because no one has ever really considered very much the idea that there could be shots that early in the parade. And I think the basis of that is you look at the parade and at first glance, the first 50 times you look at the Zapruder film you don't see very much happening there. But I would ask you to listen and see what is discussed, I believe, tomorrow. Mr. PREYER. Well, is the jiggle analysis consistent with the firing of four shots or is it inconsistent with that? Dr. HARTMANN. I would be inclined to say that it is perhaps somewhat more consistent with the firing of three shots, without this one. It would perhaps even be more consistent with the firing of two shots, because there are two principal clusters here. I think it is rather weak evidence to answer that question right off. Mr. PREYER. So it is more consistent with the firing of three shots. Dr. HARTMANN. Slightly. Mr. PREYER. But it is most consistent of all with the firing of two shots. Dr. HARTMANN. I think it would be somewhat more consistent with the firing of two shots. I think this whole mass of material from today gains its credibility by being fitted together with everything else, rather than just being taken as evidence that proves anything on its own. Mr. PREYER. How much of the reaction is there from Mr. Zapruder seeing President Kennedy struck and reacting, and how much is his jiggling from the sound of the bullet? Dr. HARTMANN. I think it is impossible to say for certain because we don't know how the human body really reacts. But Mr. Zapruder said that he reacted to the sight of the impact, of the head wound, as I understand it. And that certainly is consistent with this massive shaking that goes on after that. By psychological experiments that have been done in the past, one would expect that in the first few tenths of a second, though, there would be a startled reaction, and that is probably what we see particularly in frame 318, the very blurred frame. Mr. PREYER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman STOKES. The time of the gentleman has expired. The gentleman from Connecticut, Mr. McKinney. 136 Mr. McKINNEY. No questions, Mr. Chairman. Chairman STOKES. The gentleman from Connecticut, Mr. Dodd. Mr. DODD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You stated in response to Congressman Fithian's question that the Warren Commission was in error in identifying frame 210 as the frame in which the first gunshot was fired. What is your explanation for the Warren Commission's error? Dr. HARTMANN. Well, I don't know that I said so flatly that they were in error. But I would say that that evidence does not fit very well with what we have. And again, my understanding was that the process of logic that they used was they had some testimony that it looked like the wound occurred at about 210, when the President was behind the sign, and that is marked on this little set of keys up at the top. And then the process of logic continued by saying "We think that--we know from the measurements that the car was behind the general body of the tree shortly before that." And they felt that that was a less likely time for the assassin to have fired, although there is a gap that they commented on themselves in the foliage of the tree that occurs at about 186. And I think those were the two key bits of testimony. I am not certain that that is all of the testimony. But I think that is basically why they concluded that. And as I mentioned before, I am not aware that they did any of this kind of analysis, nor did they look very seriously, I believe, at the early frames. And in fact if you look in your Warren volumes, they start the Zapruder sequence, it was something like 177 or somewhere in the 170's. So that everything before here isn't even in the final volume that was published. Mr. DODD. Well, based on what you have been telling us here, it would seem to indicate that we place the first shot in about eight frames, at least eight frames earlier than that, around 200, 202. Dr. HARTMANN. I think a shot probably even before that. If I went through the little mathematical exercise of subtracting a reasonable number of frames from the reaction time, from this cluster, the answer that I got was a shot something like 179 to 195. Mr. DODD. To your knowledge, looking from the placing the Presidential limousine and being in the Book Depository, where is that tree in that frame? Dr. HARTMANN. You would be looking through the tree. Although as I mentioned there is a break in the foliage at 186. And I made kind of a quick comparison of some of the photographs that were in the Warren volume, and the foliage measurements were made on the basis of the tests that were conducted the next spring. And the point has been made, and I am--the point has been made in some of the literature, and I am inclined to believe it after looking at the pictures that were taken on the 22d of November and the pictures that were taken next spring, that there was probably less foliage on the tree on November 22. So that if anything the marksman might have had a larger opening at 186. So I am inclined not to think that that is a fatal objection to a shot having been made at this time and hitting the target. Mr. DODD. In response to Judge Preyer's questions with regard to the number of shots, possible number of shots--and I realize that 137 you are not advocating that this jiggle test is necessarily the best way to corroborate that--- Dr. HARTMANN. No, I am not. Mr. DODD. But to make the point, Dr. Barger indicated that two of the shots could have occurred within five-tenths of a second of each other. And I presume what you are telling me is that it would be impossible, based on jiggle analysis, to determine whether or not there was one or two shots within that short a frame, a time frame. Dr. HARTMANN. I think it would be very difficult to tell. You see the kind of problem that you would get into, if we just take any of this pattern of jiggle back here toward the end of the diagram, it would be hard to pick two of those spikes out and say those are related to these two noises. So I don't know what the evidence would be. Mr. DODD. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman STOKES. Mr. Fithian, anything further? Mr. FITHIAN. Nothing, Mr. Chairman. Chairman STOKES. OK. Dr. Hartmann, under the rules of our committee any witness at the conclusion of his testimony may have 5 minutes in which to expand upon his testimony before the committee in any way. I would like to extend to you 5 minutes if you so desire. Dr. HARTMANN. Just to make the point very briefly that it has occurred to me that perhaps sometimes a scientist making the measurements of these films comes across as very coldhearted. I comment at least for myself, and I think many of us, that the horror of this thing came across many, many times in doing this. And I wish you all very much good wishes to clarify what really has happened here. Thank you. Chairman STOKES. Thank you very much, sir. There being nothing further, these hearings are adjourned to 9 a.m. tomorrow morning. [Whereupon at 6:15 p.m. the hearings were adjourned to reconvene at 9 a.m., Tuesday, September 12, 1978.] 138 (blank page) INVESTIGATION OF THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 1978 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SELECT COMMITTEE ON ASSASSINATIONS, Washington, D.C. The select committee met, pursuant to adjournment, at 9:15 a.m., in room 345, Cannon House Office Building, Hon. Louis Stokes (chairman of the select committee), presiding. Present: Representatives Stokes, Devine, Preyer, McKinney, Sawyer, Dodd, Ford, and Fithian. Staff present: G. Robert Blakey, chief counsel and staff director; Michael Goldsmith, senior staff counsel; and Elizabeth L. Berning, chief clerk. Chairman STOKES. A quorum being present, the committee will come to order. The Chair recognizes Professor Blakey. NARRATION BY G. ROBERT BLAKEY, CHIEF COUNSEL Mr. BLAKEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Bullet trajectory has become a matter of considerable debate in the Kennedy assassination, for it, too, goes, as the testimony has indicated, to the heart of the issue of whether a single bullet wounded both the President and Governor Connally. It also locates the position of the assassin or assassins whom the medical evidence indicates hit their target. The Warren Commission reasoned that an accumulation of medical and ballistics evidence demonstrated that the shots were fired from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository. Its approach to the line of fire issue, therefore, was simply to determine that trajectory data was consistent with their ultimate conclusion. On May 24, 1964, the FBI and Secret Service agents conducted a series of tests, reconstructing trajectories. Using the Zapruder, Nix, and Muchmore films, they were able to fix the locations of the Presidential limousine and its occupants. An FBI agent was positioned in the southeast corner window of the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository with the Mannlicher-Carcano that had been identified as having belonged to Lee Harvey Oswald. Mounted on a tripod was a motion picture camera attached to the telescopic sight that viewed the target area precisely as the assassin would have seen it had he used the telescopic sight. The position of the limousine, as it corresponded to each frame of the Zapruder film, was recorded. (139) 140 The agents observed that at frame 166 of the Zapruder film, the President passed behind the foliage of an oak tree, and but for a fraction of a second at frame 186, he did not move into an assassin's view until frame 210. This led the Commission to accept the probability that the President was not shot before frame 210. The assassin, the Commission reasoned, would have waited until after frame 210, at which point his view was again unobstructed. At frame 210, however, Abraham Zapruder's view of the President was blocked by a highway sign, and the President did not emerge from behind the sign until frame 225, just short of a second later. Although the Commission was unable to fix the exact time point the President was first hit, it was able to determine that it was during the period he was behind the sign. The Commission thought he showed no sign of injury before frame 210; he was obviously hit at frame 225. It should be emphasized, however, that there is no photographic evidence recording the precise instant of the first .hit to the President. Still, the Commission proceeded to plot the trajectory of the first shot to hit the President by assuming the position of the limousine to be between frames 210 and 225. At each intervening frame, the FBI agent at the sixth floor window lined up the telescopic sight on the points of entry wounds marked on stand-ins for the President and Governor Connally seated in the limousine. The next step was to have a surveyor place his sighting device at the precise point of entry on the President's upper back for each frame of the Zapruder film. The surveyor then measured the angle to the muzzle of the rifle in the sixth floor window of the Texas School Book Depository. The measurements were averaged, and, taking into account the downward grade of the roadway, the probable angle through the President's body was calculated at 17 degrees 43 minutes 30 seconds, assuming he was sitting in a vertical position. The Commission then concluded that this angle was consistent with the trajectory of a bullet that would have passed through both the President's neck and struck Governor Connally in the back. The critics have decried the Commission's trajectory for the fact that it assumes the shot came from the rear. Here are examples of their commentaries: Mark Lane in his "Rush to Judgment": The Commission * * * employed the unproved assertion that the bullet which struck the President came from the rear as the basic premise to prove that it "probably" hit Governor Connally as well. Sylvia Meagher in her "Accessories After the Fact": The Commission did not give adequate consideration to the possibility of assassins at locations other than the window or the overpass * * *. There is a considerable body of evidence suggesting that shots were fired from the grassy knoll * * * Josiah Thompson in his "Six Seconds in Dallas" attempted a trajectory analysis and decided that there were four shots from three locations--two from the depository, one from the east side of Dealey Plaza, one from the stockade fence north on Elm Street. 141 It would seem that the critics have at least one point in their favor in attacking the Commission's analysis. The analysis assumes the firing position of the assassin as a known, then proceeds to compute the angle to the target. The objective was to verify that the resulting trajectory was consistent with the assumed position of the gunman. The committee, however, has taken a different approach. It decided to take the entry wounds to the President and Governor Connally as the starting points in its calculations and work outward from there. It was hypothesized that, given a margin of error, the trajectory out from the limousine would lead to the position of the assassin. The committee in part based its trajectory analysis on the location of the entrance and exit wounds supplied by its medical panel, and it relied on the evidence obtained from photographic and acoustical analysis. Since the trajectory study was underway well before the acoustical analysis was complete, data on the sound of shots was available only in the latter stages of the line-of-fire survey. It is likely, therefore, and it should be emphasized, that the final trajectory analysis may well be modified somewhat in order that the final results of the acoustical analysis might be incorporated. Consequently, the testimony that you will hear today is preliminary in the sense that it has not yet incorporated the material from the acoustical analysis. For the photographic phase of the survey, the committee called on 15-odd-man photo scientists who served either as contractors for the committee or as members of its photographic panel. At a recent conference, they reviewed the Zapruder film from two standpoints, first: They sought to pinpoint when the President and Governor Connally first visibly reacted to being hit by shots. Second, they tried to determine whether the relative position of the two men at the moment Kennedy was probably first hit was consistent with the single bullet analysis or hypothesis. The photo scientists who did the review represent a broad range of experience both academic and industrial. Their work for the committee has been extensive since, as the presentation on opening day indicated, the photographic issues in the Kennedy assassination are many and complex. A member of the photographic evidence panel, Mr. Calvin McCamy, is here today to testify on part of the trajectory analysis that utilizes the Zapruder film. He will also discuss the photogrammetric technique that was used to locate precisely the position of the limousine at the time the shots that struck the President and Governor Connally were fired. Mr. McCamy received a B.S. degree in chemical engineering and a M.S. degree in physics from the University of Minnesota. He has taught mathematics at the University of Minnesota and physics at Clemson University. He has been the Chief of Image Optics and Photography with the National Bureau of Standards. Currently, he is with the Macbeth Division of Kollmorgen Corp. Mr. McCamy serves as chairman of the American National Standards' Working Group on Print Quality for Optical Character Recognition, chairman of the American Society of Photogrammetry 142 Standards Committee, and adviser to the U.S. delegation to the International Organization for Standardization Committee on Photography. Mr. McCamy is a fellow of the Optical Society of America, the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, and the Society of Photographic Scientists and Engineers. He serves on the editorial review boards of several technical journals and he has authored numerous papers on photography, color printing and other aspects of chemistry and physics. It would be appropriate now, Mr. Chairman, to call Mr. McCamy. Chairman STOKES. The committee calls Mr. McCamy. Sir, will you stand, raise your right hand and be sworn. Do you solemnly swear the testimony you will give before this committee will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God? Mr. McCAMY. I do. Chairman STOKES. Thank you. You may be seated. The Chair recognizes counsel for the committee, Mr. Michael Goldsmith. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. McCamy, for what purposes were the photographic evidence panel and contractors asked to review the Zapruder film at its most recent conference? TESTIMONY OF CALVIN McCAMY Mr. McCAMY. Our first purpose was to ascertain from the photographic evidence, if possible, the first signs that the President or Governor Connally were in distress. The second objective was to ascertain from the photographic evidence, if possible, whether or not the President and the Governor were in positions in the limousine that would be consistent with the single bullet theory. Mr. GOLDSMITH. How many panel members actually participated in the review of the Zapruder film, Mr. McCamy? Mr. McCAMY. There were about 20 people altogether. The films were viewed many times in many sessions. They were not all present at all times. When we voted on specific issues, about 15 people voted. Mr. GOLDSMITH. And did you view any particular version of the Zapruder film? Mr. McCAMY. Yes; we had a copy, a direct copy, of the Zapruder film. We also had special films that were prepared by Mr. Groden. These were rotoscoped, which means that they were slightly enlarged and stabilized. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Does a rotoscope version of the Zapruder film facilitate analysis? Mr. MCCAMY. Yes, it gives you a closer view, and as I said, it is stabilized, so, it seems to be more stable on the screen. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Now how many times was this film viewed by the panel? Mr. MCCAMY. That is very hard to say, because we would look at a scene and attempt to determine what was happening, go back, look at it again, and then again and again. We have looked at it for 143 days. I would estimate somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 times. Mr. GOLDSMITH. As you know, Mr. McCamy, the original Zapruder film is missing four frames between frames 208 and 211. Those four frames were spliced out when Time-Life had possession of the film. Was the panel given an opportunity to see the four frames 208-211, showing the President as he went behind the sign when the panel reviewed the Zapruder film? Mr. McCAMY. Yes. Mr. Groden had obtained the Secret Service film that had those frames. He had copied them on 35-mm film. These were still slides, and at that point in the viewing, we went to a 35 mm projector and looked at the slides that represented those frames. Mr. GOLDSMITH. And that Secret Service film I take it was made available to Mr. Groden by the committee staff?. Mr. McCAMY. Yes, that is correct. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Would you state at this time, Mr. McCamy, what the panel's conclusion was about when President Kennedy first showed a reaction to some severe external stimulus? Mr. McCAMY. Yes. The panel generally tended to agree that there was some sign of distress before frame 207. We took a vote on that, and the vote was 12 to 5 that there was photographic evidence of some distress by that time. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Would you indicate at this point whether frame 207 is before or after the President goes behind the sign? By "sign" I am referring to the sign that obstructed Abraham Zapruder's line of sight. Mr. McCAMY. The President's head is partially obscured by the sign at that time, so this is just as he is going behind the sign. Mr. GOLDSMITH. And what was the panel's conclusion about when Governor Connally first appeared to be showing a reaction to some severe external stimulus? Mr. McCAMY. The vote was 11 to 3 that there was some sign of distress by frame 226, which is just immediately after he comes out from behind the sign. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Finally, would you indicate now what the panel's opinion was about whether the relative alinement of the two men in the vehicle was consistent with the single bullet theory? Mr. McCAMY. Yes. The positions of the men were examined on these films just prior to the time that the limousine went behind the sign, and it was agreed 15 to 1 that the men were in positions that were consistent with the single bullet theory. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Mr. Chairman, I might state now that we are about to review the Zapruder film. The film that we are about to see contains all of the frames that had previously been spliced out. We have a special projector here which is capable of running the film at a reduced speed. The normal speed I believe is 18 frames per second, and we will be viewing it today at a somewhat reduced speed. Mr. McCamy, would you at this point review the film with us for the purpose of describing the actions of the limousine occupants and to summarize generally the basis for the panel's conclusions? 144 Mr. McCAMY. Yes. Let me state first the film is taken by Mr. Zapruder, an amateur photographer, using an amateur 8 mm motion picture camera. He had positioned himself on top of a masonry structure where he could see almost the entire path of the parade through Dealey Plaza on Elm Street. For a brief time, view is obscured by a traffic sign indicating the way to the Stemmons freeway. We are going to see a 16 mm copy of the Zapruder film incorporating all frames. We will first see the entire sequence photographed by Zapruder. We will see it at two-thirds of its normal speed. Then we will go back and make some observations bearing on Governor Connally's testimony that he heard a shot, turned and looked over his right shoulder. Then we will go to a rotoscope version which we will use to study the movements of the President. Then we will again see a rotoscope view in which we will look at the positions of the two men as shown in the Zapruder film and the motions of Connally. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Could we have the lights out, please? Mr. McCAMY. At this point, Governor Connally is looking slightly to his left. He continues to look in that direction in the next frame. Here Governor Connally is looking slightly to his left. He continues to look slightly to his left. In the next frame we see him having turned quite sharply toward the front, and in the next frame even more so. He is now continuing to turn to the right. And here we see him looking to the right and upward, confirming his testimony that he heard a shot and turned and looked over his right shoulder. We now go to a rotoscope version where we will be seeing it in very slow motion in order that we may observe the actions of the President. His hand is moving downward. He was waving to the audience. Notice that there are some frames in which there is very considerable blur. This was part of our analysis, as you will recall. The President continuing to wave to the audience, and apparently smiling on these frames. In this view we can see the President and Governor Connally. The President's shoulders can be seen. Governor Connally is seen turned quite sharply to his right, his entire torso having been twisted somewhat as he looks that way. Between the two men we see the black upholstery, shiny black upholstery, on the seat behind President Kennedy. The two bright areas you see at the top of that upholstery are reflections of sunlight. So we see a considerable amount of the rear seat of the limousine between the President and Governor Connally. There is a chrome strip that runs along the side of the limousine. The President's arm is on or over that chrome strip, which means that he is well to the right side of the limousine. Governor Connally, on the other hand, can be seen to be well inside the limousine. These facts were of course confirmed by other photographs as well, but I think they are clearly seen here. There is considerable blurring at this point. The President's arm is up in a waving position. His head is still toward the right. At this point there is considerable blur, and by here, it appears as though his head is beginning to turn quite rapidly to the left. His 145 head is now to the left. That is only one-eighteenth of a second from one frame to the next. He continues to look toward the left. One barely sees his right ear toward the camera. It is quite clear he is here now looking directly at his wife. He and his wife can be seen looking at one another in this sequence. He now goes behind the sign, and only a fraction of a second later we see his hands moving upward. He has a gasping expression. His hands are in a classic position of a person who has been startled. He now begins to raise his arms into what I would call a defensive position. He may be clutching at the throat wound. He maintains this attitude, turning again sharply to his wife, who clearly recognizes the situation by now. He moves toward his wife. His wife notices Connally. The President is now moving toward his wife, turning his head toward her, leaning forward, and leaning to the left. His head is quite a ways down, as you can see. His wife apparently inspects the wound or the damage to his clothing at least. That is the head shot. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Mr. McCamy? Mr. McCAMY. Yes, sir. Mr. GOLDSMITH. As we are about to view the rotoscope version a second time, could you state the specific basis of the panel's conclusion that the President was hit before he went behind the sign when we view that film a second time? Mr. McCAMY. We will largely be studying the motions of Governor Connally here. Here is where he is looking to the right sharply, while the President still waves to the crowd. Here is the view in which you can see fairly well the positions of the men. That is a fairly clear view right there. Governor Connally seems to be looking left (as seen from the viewer's perspective) as the car goes behind the sign. Now President Kennedy made this very sharp sudden turn to the left, turning about 180 degrees in something like a sixth of a second. This was a very sharp turn. It would be whipping one's head around. As Connally comes out from behind the sign, he has a distressed look on his face. He is concerned. He is looking upward. His body is in a rather taut attitude. He winces. His facial expression changes radically. His head position changes rapidly from moment to moment. He grimaces. He begins to turn sharply. His cheeks are puffed. He apparently is screaming or saying something, very clearly in distress. He turns, looks back at the President, as he said he did, recognizes that the President has been shot, recovers only enough now to lie back down at the time of the head shot which he described. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Mr. McCamy, I would ask you to run the rotoscope version one more time, and at this time specifically indicate the panel's basis for concluding that Governor Connally is showing a reaction almost immediately after emerging from behind the sign. Mr. MCCAMY. Here he is seen first. He is looking upward. His body is thrown back. He seems to be frowning. His facial expression changed very suddenly there. We can compare those two 146 frames. That is an one-eighteenth of a second from that to this. Another one-eighteenth of a second later his facial expression has changed radically, and now his head moves very quickly in one eighteenth of a second. Now facing straight forward. There was a turn something like 60 degrees in about one-ninth of a second. His facial expression seems to change from frame to frame, and now he begins to turn. His cheeks are puffed here. He opens his mouth, turning back to look at the President. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Mr. McCamy, at this point, rather than continue with the end of this particular section of the rotoscope film, I would ask you to move the film back to where the two men are behind the sign and indicate the specific basis for the panel's concluding that the men were sitting a position consistent with the single bullet theory. Mr. McCAMY. This is one of the clearer frames taken in a small fraction of a second before the limousine went behind the sign. The President's arm is on the edge of the limousine. He is seated far to the right in his seat. Governor Connally, on the other hand, is looking to the right, and his body is twisted toward the right. His shoulders can be seen here, and as I indicated earlier, a considerable expanse of the rear seat of the limousine can be seen between the two men at this angle. This indicates, of course, that Connally was well inside the automobile, and therefore a projectile coming from the right side of the automobile could have penetrated Kennedy's back, come out through his neck, and then gone downward through Connally's torso, his right wrist, which was just above his thigh, and then be buried in his thigh. Mr. GoLDsMITH. Does this correspond approximately with frame 193 of the Zapruder film? Mr. McCAMY. Yes, that is approximately right. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Very well. I would ask you now to finish showing the film at regular speed, and we will proceed with your testimony. Thank you. Can we have the lights now? Mr. McCamy, I noticed several times in your testimony that you made references to changes in the movements of the occupants of the limousine within an one-eighteenth of a second. To what extent was the panel's knowledge and understanding that the Zapruder film runs at approximately 18.3 frames per second important in its analysis? By that I mean, to what extent did the panel attempt to quantify its analysis? Mr. McCAMY. The 18.3 frames per second was used by the panel. The motion picture camera takes a photograph every 18.3--I am sorry, takes a photograph 18.3 times each second. This tells us that the movement between any two frames takes place in about one eighteenth of a second, and that timing is quite good. We saw no evidence that the camera was running in an unsteady manner or any such thing, so that this makes it a reasonable basis for timing. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Now at one point early in the film, you made reference to Governor Connally turning sharply from his left to his right within approximately four frames. If you were to quantify 147 that, would that come out to a turn of something like or something in excess of 720(deg) per second? Mr. McCAMY. I would describe it in this way: There was first a jerk of about 60 degrees in a one-ninth of a second, and that would be characterized as a jerk. He was looking slightly left. He jerked toward the right, paused momentarily, and then executed another sharp turn to his right, 30(deg) more in one-eighteenth of a second. So, it was essentially two sudden jerks, and then he began to look upward. Mr. GOLDSMITH. And that was approximately at frame 160 of the Zapruder film? Mr. MCCAMY. This is the first jerk from 162 to 164, and the second one, 166 to 167. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Thank you. I am going to proceed now to the next area of inquiry, Mr. McCamy. Are you familiar with the trajectory project that has been con- ducted by this committee? Mr. McCAMY. Yes. Mr. GOLDSMITH. To what extent have you been involved in this project? Mr. McCAMY. I assisted with some of the photographic interpretation and some of the photogrammetry. Mr. GOLDSMITH. At this time I would ask that the witness be given an opportunity to look at what has been marked for identification as JFK F-133, a Survey Map. Mr. Chairman, this is a survey map of the Dealey Plaza area. I move for its admission into the record. Chairman STOKES. Without objection, it may be entered into the record. [The information follows:] 148 JFK EXHIBIT F-133 149 Mr. GOLDSMITH. Mrs. Downey, may I have your assistance for a moment? According to this map it indicates the position of the Presidential limousine in frames 193 and 313 of the Zapruder film. Mrs. Downey is pointing to those two positions on the map. I ask you, Mr. McCamy, do you know what method was used to place the limousine in Dealey Plaza for purposes of the trajectory analysis? Mr. McCAMY. Yes. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Who actually carried out this analysis for the committee? Mr. McCAMY. This was done by the U.S. Geological Survey in Reston, Va. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Would you describe now what method they used photogrammetrically to place the limousine in Dealey Plaza? Mr. McCAMY. Yes, a map was made of Dealey Plaza by a survey firm in Dallas, Tex., and that map was provided to the Geological Survey. Enlargements of six frames of the Zapruder film were provided to the Survey. The position of the cameraman was known from his testimony and confirmed by photographs of him taken by photographers on the other side of the street. The Geological Survey found a number of points on a wall that appeared in these photographs. They located these points precisely on the map, and they could determine the line of sight from the lens to each of these points. Now these lines made angles at the camera lens. The same angles were described inside the camera when the scene was imaged. They were able to measure the corresponding distances on the film, and knowing the angles and these corresponding distances, they were able to determine the distance from the film to the lens. Once that distance was determined, it was possible to make measurements on photographs, and from those measurements compute angles in space. They knew the dimensions of the limousine, both from design drawings and from measurements made by the Secret Service. Knowing the dimensions of the limousine, and the angles subtendent on the films, it was possible for them to compute the distance from the camera to the limousine. Then on these photographs they were able to pick out known points in Dealey Plaza and known points on the limousine, and, as I said, they were able then to compute from the measurements on the photograph the angles from these known points to the points on the limousine. Knowing the distance and knowing the angles, they were able to plot these positions on the map. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Does this method have any particular name by which it is referred to? Mr. McCAMY. This is analytical photogrammetry. Mr. GOLDSMITH. And within what margin of error was the U.S. Geological Survey able to place the limousine in Dealey Plaza? Mr. McCAMY. They made estimates of the error. Some of the frames given to them were better photographically than others, and on the three best frames, they estimated their positions to be 150 within one-half meter. For the other frames that were not as clear, they estimated their maximum error to be about 2 meters. Mr. GOLDSMITH. In your opinion, Mr. McCamy, do you regard these estimates as being conservative? Mr. MCCAMY. They have said that these are conservative estimates, and, yes, they sound like quite conservative estimates to me. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Why do they sound conservative to you, sir? Mr. McCAMY. Because the methods of photogrammetry are very precise. We have lines of sight, and we have quite precise methods of computation, so I would think that these are conservative values. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Thank you very much. I have no further questions. Chairman STOKES. The Chair will at this time yield to the gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Sawyer, after which the committee will observe the 5-minute rule. The gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Sawyer. Mr. SAWYER. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. When you were making these studies on trajectory, did you make any assumptions with regard to the positions of the people in the limousine? Mr. McCAMY. The positions of the people in the limousine were determined by a study of a large number of photographs. Incidentally, some of these photographs have just come to be known, so that there is some new evidence. At least one recent photograph is a very clear photograph of the side of the limousine taken by a man standing right on the curb. So we do have quite a bit of information about the positions. On that photograph that I just mentioned, I went back to the design data for the limousine and to the measurements that were taken by the Secret Service on the various parts of the limousine, and these gave quite accurate scaling, and then it was possible to make measurements of the people. Not all of the people were visible. There were times when there were areas that were simply in shadow so that you could not see everything. The determinations are not perfect, of course, but we were able to position them quite well, I think. Mr. SAWYER. I noticed, or as I recall it, you said that Governor Connally executed this rapid turn to his right, as I recall it, 90 degrees in one-eighteenth of a second, and then looked upward. Now this was before, that was 166 to 167 frames, whereas you said the panel agreed on a vote that about frame 207 was the first indication that the President was in distress. Mr. McCAMY. Yes. Mr. SAWYER. So that I presume from listening to you, that it would be an indication at least that there had been a shot that didn't hit anybody at that time, at about 166 to 167? Mr. McCAMY. This would explain the observed facts, yes. Mr. SAWYER. And then if I follow more by inference than specifically what you said, it would have been a second shot that hit the President for the first time. Mr. McCAMY. Yes. Mr. SAWYER. And that would have been the shot that presumably then hit Governor Connally also. 151 Mr. McCAMY. Yes. Mr. SAWYER. Thank you. I have no further questions, Mr. Chairman. Chairman STOKES. The time of the gentleman has expired. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Connecticut, Mr. Dodd. Mr. DODD. Mr. Chairman, I will defer any questions I have at this time. Chairman STOKES. The gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Devine. Mr. DEVINE. I have no questions, Mr. Chairman. Chairman STOKES. Any other members seeking recognition? The gentleman from Indiana, Mr. Fithian. Mr. FITHIAN. Mr. Chairman, I wonder if at some time this morning I might see the photo that was taken by the man on the curb. Is that evidence available? Mr. GOLDSMITH. I am not sure which photograph you are referring to. Mr. FITHIAN. The one that Mr. McCamy just referred to. He said it was a very clear photo taken perpendicular to the limousine; is that correct? Mr. McCAMY. Part of the limousine, yes. This is the Croft photo. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Yes, Mr. Fithian, that will be made available. Mr. FITHIAN. The only problem I have with the testimony is the location, the relative location, of Governor Connally and the President. As I perceive it, the Zapruder angle in relationship to the side of the limousine is about what? Mr. McCAMY. That is a rather sharp angle at that time. I would estimate something like 20'. I have not calculated that. Mr. FITHIAN. From your expertise, the photo shot, the picture taken at that angle, what does this do in terms of spreading the perceived distance between the two men? Mr. McCAMY. It would appear as though the two men are very perceptibly separated left and right, that is, that Kennedy is right against the edge of the limousine and---- Mr. FITHIAN. I understood your testimony. Let me rephrase my question. If Zapruder had been looking directly at Connally's nose from the front, then the alinement of Connally and Kennedy could be readily and clearly measured as to which one was at forward ships, so to speak. The question is, as you swing around at an angle, where you finally get in the angle that would include Zapruder, what does that do in the perception of the two people? Presumably, if you get around at 90', there would be no way of telling, except by distance measurements, which of the gentlemen was closer or further from you. But what does it do at the Zapruder angle? That is my question. Mr. McCAMY. At the Zapruder angle, the apparent displacement is reduced, so that the displacement is actually greater than you would compute it simply looking from that angle. Mr. FITHIAN. So it appears that those two bright, shiny spots and so forth, it actually appears that they are further apart, that is, in alinement within the vehicle, than they are by some certain percentage. 152 Mr. McCAMY. Yes; I see what you are getting at. Connally is, of course, definitely well in front of Kennedy, and we are seeing part of that angle as well. But as you perceive, if we were to look from the side of the vehicle, we would not get any indication at all of the shift of Connally to the left. We would see that vector at a maximum, if we look right straight from the front of the vehicle. That vector is reduced slightly by moving through this 20'. The positioning of the man, however, as I have pointed out before, was obtained from a number of photographs, not just this one. There were other motion pictures, as well as other still photographs, and with reference to the apparent shift with angle, the eye is a pretty good judge, so that when you look at that and you get an impression of how far they are, you can trust that impression pretty well. Mr. FITHIAN. I take it then that you are satisfied that there is room, though this jump seat is very small for Connally, a large man, to make these what seemed to me to be almost violent gyrations or at least very quick movements. Mr. McCAMY. He made rather quick movements. I think the small size of the jump seat would facilitate these movements actually. Mr. FITHIAN. And, finally, Mr. Chairman, a last question. It is your testimony that at frame 162 to 167 or thereabouts, both men make rather sharp movements, but they are not hit. That is your conclusion? Mr. McCAMY. No, sir, that was merely with reference to Mr. Connally. At that time President Kennedy is happily waving to the people in the crowd. Mr. FITHIAN. So Connally makes a sharp movement. Mr. McCAMY. Yes. Mr. FITHIAN. You are presuming because he heard something or he reacted to something. Mr. McCAMY. Yes; he testified to this effect, and this would seem to be consistent with what he testified. Mr. FITHIAN. And then that the single bullet that hit them both is just as they enter behind the sign or one frame or two ahead of that; is that correct? Mr. McCAMY. Yes. Mr. FITHIAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman STOKES. The time of the gentleman has expired. The gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Sawyer. Mr. SAWYER. Yes. If we were to assume or determine as the panel did and as I think we could see, that the reaction to the noise apparently by Governor Connally occurred in, say, frame 166, and the visible first reaction of any distress on the part of the President was at about 207, and considering that the reaction times of both men probably are a wash, there would be about 2.3 seconds between the presumptive first shot that missed and the shot that hit the President, about 2.3 seconds? Mr. McCAMY. Yes, something like that, right. Mr. SAWYER. Thank you. That is all. 153 Chairman STOKES. The time of the gentleman has expired. The gentleman from Connecticut, Mr. Dodd. Mr. DODD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just very briefly, you indicated that the distances between Governor Connally and the President in one clear frame is approximately 1 meter, I think you said, and a blurrier frame, 2 meters, and you said you were being conservative. Then you indicated this was an exact science. Mr. McCAMY. When we were speaking of those errors, we were talking about the ability of the Geological Survey to place the limousine on the street in a precise position. They feel as though their errors are within a half meter in placing it geographically for the better frames and within 2 meters for the poorer frames, but it was not the distance between the President and the Governor. That was surely known with much better precision than that. Mr. DODD. One of the areas that has drawn a lot of attention over the past few days that we have been here, in terms of the photographic evidence and the timing of the shots, has to do with Governor Connally's hat. Congressman Sawyer has I think very eloquently pointed out how difficult it would be for him to understand-and I think many of us, who are not as expert as he is in that area, also have difficulty understanding--how someone could hold on to a hat and be hit, as the allegations have it, hit through the wrist. What does your photographic evidence show with regard to Governor Connally's Texan Stetson hat in the photographs as you saw them in the Zapruder film? Mr. McCAMY. It can be seen that he has his hat in his hand or lying somewhere in front of him. The pictures are not quite clear enough to be able to tell you exactly what he does with the hat, but he does seem to have the hat in his hand. The medical evidence certainly shows that the radius was broken, but that is well up on the wrist, and it seems conceivable that he could have continued to clutch the hat. It is quite well known that one of the startled reactions is to clench the fists, and it just may be that he clenched it very tightly. Mr. DODD. But as a matter of photographic evidence, I am not trying to get you to comment on the medical aspects. As a matter of photographic evidence, he is holding, your evidence shows or your examination of these photographs shows, that he is holding that hat after he has been hit. Mr. McCAMY. Yes, it seems to be the case because the hat moves, and I would think this is because it was in his hand being moved. Mr. DODD. Could you give me an indication? You moved your head a couple of times trying to demonstrate how Governor Connally moved. How fast do you move your head in one-eighteenth of a second? What does it look like? Mr. McCAMY. I visualize Connally in that first sequence we were talking about moving this way and then this way. Mr. DODD. That quickly? Mr. McCAMY. Yes, that quickly. Mr. DODD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman STOKES. The time of the gentleman has expired. 154 Mr. McCamy, at the conclusion of a witness' testimony before this committee, he is entitled to 5 minutes in which to explain or in any way expand upon the testimony he has given this committee. I, at this time, extend to you 5 minutes, if you so desire. Mr. McCAMY. I have no comments. Chairman STOKES All right. We thank you very much for your testimony here this morning, and you are excused, sir. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Thank you, Mr. McCamy. Chairman STOKES. Blakey. Mr. BLAKEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The photographic analysis was, of course, only an underlying fact from which the trajectory analysis could proceed. The trajectory analysis itself was a joint effort between the committee and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. An engineer with NASA's Space Project Division, Tom Canning, constructed the final product from information provided by the committee from its various panels. Mr. Canning received a B.S., cum laude, in mechanical engineering and an M.S. in aeronautics from Stanford University. Since joining NASA in 1943 as an aeronautical research scientist, he has been the Branch Chief of the Hypersonic Free-Flight Branch, Group Leader of the Probes System Group of Pioneer-Venus Mission, and currently he is Staff Engineer of the Space Projects Division. Mr. Canning received the NASA Medal for Exceptional Scientific Achievement for his work in atmosphere entry body research for Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo. During his 23 years of work with the Hypersonic Free-flight Branch he has conducted and supervised research in the flight trajectory and stability of high speed projectiles and missiles. He has published numerous papers in that field. Mr. Chairman, it would be appropriate now to call Mr. Canning. Chairman STOKES. The committee calls Mr. Canning. Sir, would you please stand and raise your right hand to be sworn? Do you solemnly swear that the evidence you will give before this committee is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God? Mr. CANNING. I do, yes. Chairman STOKES. Thank you. You may be seated. Mr. Goldsmith? Mr. GOLDSMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. If I may have a moment. For the record, sir, would you please state your name and occupation? TESTIMONY OF THOMAS CANNING Mr. CANNING. I am Tom Canning. I am Staff Engineer for the Space Projects Division of NASA Ames Research Center. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Mr. Canning, I would like to ask you to move the mike somewhat closer to you and to speak directly into it. Thank you. 155 Would you define for the committee what the concept of trajectory is? Mr. CANNING. Trajectory is simply the path taken by a missile as it travels through space. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Do different missiles or projectiles have different types of trajectories? Mr. CANNING. Yes, they do. If we, for instance, have a missile that travels a great distance, its position will be strongly affected by the gravitation of Earth. If it is flying through an atmosphere, it will be affected by the aerodynamic forces on it. Mr. GOLDSMITH. What type of trajectory is involved in the case of a bullet that travels a distance of less than 100 yards? Mr. CANNING. For a high-speed bullet the effects of the aerodynamics and of the gravity are very small, so that we can consider the trajectory essentially a straight line. Mr. GOLDSMITH. How is this kind of trajectory specified or characterized? Mr. CANNING. We can specify any particular straight line simply by locating two points in space that are on that line. Mr. GOLDSMITH. And once you have located those two points, for purposes of referring to the trajectory, would you refer to it by direction? Mr. CANNING. Yes; one would specify for convenience a direction which would be, say, northeast, southwest, whatever, and then one would specify the slope along which the projectile or missile traveled relative to the horizontal. Mr. GOLDSMITH. So that the two basic ways to characterize the trajectory then I take it are by slope and direction. Mr. CANNING. That is correct. Mr. GOLDSMITH. And what basic information is necessary to determine a trajectory? Mr. CANNING. We must first identify where the two points are in space so that we can then construct that line. Mr. GOLDSMITH. At this point I would ask that the witness be given an opportunity to examine JFK Exhibit F-361, which is the aerial photograph on the left, and JFK Exhibit F-133, that is, the survey map. Would you identify that survey map, Mr. Canning? Mr. CANNING. The survey map was the one that was prepared for us, on contract. It served to verify the postion of all of the important structures in Dealey Plaza. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Is the survey map shown an accurate scaled drawing of the Dealey Plaza area? Mr. CANNING. Yes, it is. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Where on that map is the Texas School Book Depository located? Mr. CANNING. It is where Mrs. Downey is pointing, up there, at the top of the figure. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Mrs. Downey, I would ask you now to refer to the other exhibit, and show where the Texas School Book Depository is located. Thank you. Is the height of the depository building accurately indicated? 156 Mr. CANNING. For our purposes, we wished to identify a particular level for reference on the building, and that was done correctly. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Now referring to the survey map, I take it then that the height of the building is accurately indicated on the survey map? Mr. CANNING. Yes. Mr. GOLDSMITH. What is the height of the sixth floor, specifically? Mr. CANNING. It is just slightly over 60 feet above the street level. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Is this the map that, you used for your trajectory analysis of the bullets that hit President Kennedy and Governor Connally? Mr. CANNING. Yes, it is. Mr. GOLDSMITH. What specific information, in addition to this map, did you need to determine the trajectory of these bullets? Mr. CANNING. We needed first and foremost an accurate identification of the inshoot and outshoot wounds and their exact locations. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Did you need any information about the location of the limousine? Mr. CANNING. We needed to know the location of the limousine, and we needed to know the location of the people in the limousine, and, in two cases we needed to know the actual angular orientation of the people in the limousine. Mr. GOLDSMITH. At this time I would ask that the witness be shown what has been marked for identification as JFK No. F-146. Mr. Canning, I would ask you to read that exhibit and to indicate whether the prerequisites necessary to determining the trajectory of these bullets are accurately summarized on this chart. Mr. CANNING. Yes, those are precisely what one needs to do the job. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Fine. How was all of this information made available to you, sir? Mr. CANNING. It was made available from a variety of sources. The forensic pathology panel supplied the wound information. The USGS survey map that we have on the right was another source, and then the photographic record made by the various amateur photographers in the plaza were used to supply most of the third. Mr. GOLDSMITH. How many trajectories did you attempt to deter- mine for the committee? Mr. CANNING. Three. Mr. GOLDSMITH. My understanding is, at least according to the present record, only two bullets struck the President and the Governor, one striking the Governor, two striking the President. Why is it that you determined three trajectories? Mr. CANNING. We determined three trajectories in order to examine the validity of the single bullet theory that has received so much attention. Mr. GOLDSMITH. What specific trajectories did you attempt to construct? Mr. CANNING. A trajectory based on the two head wounds in the President, a second trajectory based on the two wounds, one in his upper back and the other near the center of his neck, and the third 157 trajectory was based on the hypothesis that the projectile which came out of Mr. Kennedy's neck passed into the back of Governor Connally. Mr. GOLDSMITH. You made reference a moment ago to the President's two head wounds. By that, what were you referring to? Mr. CANNING. I was referring to the wound in the back of his head which was caused by entry of a rifle bullet and a wound forward of that and to the right where the bullet exited his head. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Did the committee express any reason to you for why it wanted more than one trajectory to be constructed? Mr. CANNING. Yes, they did. The rationale was that we would like to find out if the trajectories corresponded to one or more launch locations or firing locations. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Fine. From which of these trajectories, Mr. Canning, did you have the best photographic evidence available to assist you? Mr. CANNING. The head wound case had perhaps the most unequivocal photographic evidence. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Would you summarize now what evidence was available? Mr. CANNING. The key evidence for this case was a motion picture frame taken from the Zapruder film, Frame No. 312, and there were two additional motion pictures taken at that time, one by Nix and another by Muchmore, which aided in the interpretation of those movies. Mr. GOLDSMITH. In what way was this photographic evidence better than the photographic evidence that was available for the other shot? Mr. CANNING. In large measure simply because we knew the time at which the President's fatal wound occurred very precisely. In addition the head provides a rigid reference system, while the rest of the body's relatively flexible structure is capable of movement and distortions. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Now, I notice that from this chart labeled "Elements to Determining Trajectory of the JFK-JBC Bullets" the first step in determining the trajectory is to establish the wound locations. Referring now to the trajectory that you constructed for the bullet that hit the President's head, how was the information about the President's wounds given to you? Mr. CANNING. That was given as physical descriptions, word descriptions, including the dimensions of the inshoot and outshoot wound locations. Mr. GOLDSMITH. By "dimensions," I take it then that you were given quantified information about the location of the wounds? Mr. CANNING. That is true. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Why was it necessary to quantify the locations? Mr. CANNING. Again simply because we must establish those wound locations in space, and therefore we must have actual numbers in centimeters where the wounds were actually found to be. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Do you know on what basis the location of the wounds was quantified? 158 Mr. CANNING. It was established by measurements from X-rays and from photographs made during the autopsy of the President. Mr. GOLDSMITH. At this time I would ask that the witness be given an opportunity to examine what has been marked as JFK No. 147 and JFK No. 137. I should correct myself. That is F-147 and F-137. Mr. Canning, examining these two exhibits, one of which is marked "Location of Head Wounds in President Kennedy," actually they are both marked the same way. They just show it from a different perspective. I would ask you whether the wounds are accurately represented in these exhibits in the manner that you used them in your trajectory analysis. Mr. CANNING. Yes, the positions are accurately represented there as I used them. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Are these diagrams drawn to scale? Mr. CANNING. The diagram on the left is actually generated from a tracing of a premortem X-ray that had been taken of the President's head, so that one is a true scale representation of the President's skull. Mr. GOLDSMITH. That is the one that shows the right lateral view? Mr. CANNING. That is the right lateral view; correct. Mr. GOLDSMITH. And what about the one on the right, sir? Mr. CANNING. The diagram on the right is based on a tracing taken from a textbook; the actual measured positions of the wounds are indicated by the dimensions shown in the diagram. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Which textbook was that drawing taken from? Mr. CANNING. That was drawn from Gray's Anatomy. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Mr. Chairman, I move for the admission of these two exhibits. Chairman STOKES. Without objection, they may be entered into the record at this point. [The information follows:] 159 JFK EXHIBIT F-147 JFK EXHIBIT F-137 Mr. GOLDSMITH. Mr. Canning referring to these two exhibits, I would ask you to describe the location of these wounds, the President's wounds as they were quantified for you. Mr. CANNING. The inshoot wound as shown in the right lateral view was determined by the forensic pathology panel to be 9 centi- 160 meters above the external occipital protuberance which is a little pointed structure at the base of the skull. That inshoot wound was shown, and it is dimensioned in the right-hand figure, the frontal view, as being 1.8 centimeters to the right of the mid-plane of the skull. The outshoot wound was shown to be 5 1/2 centimeters to the right and to lie on what is called the coronal suture. The outshoot wound is 11 centimeters forward of the inshoot wound. If one draws a line straight from the inshoot wound forward through the outshoot wound in the right lateral projection, it turns out to be very close to 90(deg) relative to the external facial axis as determined from a study of the relative tissue thicknesses, of American males. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Mr. Canning, what frame of the Zapruder film was used as the basis for determining the trajectory of the bullet that hit the President's head? Mr. CANNING. Frame 312. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Mr. Chairman, at this time I ask that the witness be given an opportunity to examine what has been marked for identification as JFK F-134. Mr. Canning, would you identify that exhibit or that item? Mr. CANNING. This is an enlargement of an enhanced photograph, an enhanced reproduction of the Zapruder Frame 312. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Mr. Chairman, I move for the admission of this exhibit, and also for the admission of JFK F-146. Chairman STOKES. Without objection, they may both be received. [The information follows:] JFK EXHIBIT F-134 161 JFK EXHIBIT F-146 Mr. GOLDSMITH. Now why was this specific frame used to determine the trajectory of the head shot bullet? Mr. CANNING. Because it was taken such a very short time before the fatal bullet struck the President. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Are you able to indicate more precisely how short a time? Mr. CANNING. The shortest time that it is likely to have been is about a 35th of a second. It may have been slightly longer than that. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Is this the frame on the Zapruder film that is immediately before the one that shows the President's head exploding? Mr. CANNING. That is correct. Mr. GOLDSMITH. I would refer your attention now, Mr. Canning, to the survey map. Mrs. Downey is going to point out to you the location of the limousine at frame 313. Now at this time I would like to refer you to the testimony of Mr. McCamy earlier this morning. Were you present for that testimony? Mr. CANNING. Yes, I was. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Do you understand how the limousine was placed in that position for frame 313? Mr. CANNING. Yes, I do. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Did you use frame 313 for your analysis? Mr. CANNING. No. I used it only as a basis for a calculation of where the car must have been at 312. Mr. GOLDSMITH. So on what basis did you move the limousine from its position at Frame 313 to its position at Frame 312? Mr. CANNING. I found the speed of the automobile down Elm Street by the study of the whole record, and then adjusted the position of the limousine accordingly for one-eighteenth of a second. Mr. GOLDSMITH. What was the adjustment that you had to make to the determination made by the U.S. Geological Survey? Mr. CANNING. A little less 1 foot. 162 Mr. GOLDSMITH. Once the limousine had been located in Dealey Plaza, how was the orientation of President Kennedy's head at the time of the head shot determined? Mr. CANNING. It was determined by studying features in the photograph of his head, actually the photograph in exhibit JFK F-134. Mr. GOLDSMITH. What is the first step in determining this orientation? Mr. CANNING. It is to find what the relationship is between President Kennedy's head and the line of sight from the camera. Mr. GOLDSMITH. By "camera" now, you are referring to Zapruder's camera? Mr. CANNING. To Zapruder's camera; that is correct. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Could you define what you mean when you say that the orientation of President Kennedy's head must be established relative to Zapruder's line of sight? Mr. CANNING. It is a matter of determining the angular relationship, how far the President is turned away from looking straight at the camera, for instance, how far his head is nodded forward, how far his head is tilted away from the camera. Mr. GoLDsMITH. I would ask Mrs. Downey now to go to the survey map, and would you indicate for her, Mr. Canning, where Mr. Zapruder was standing at the time that Frame 312 was shot? Mr. CANNING. He was standing on the concrete pedestal, at the west end of the wide stairs in front of the arcade. The pedestal appears as a black rectangle in the exhibit. Mr. GOLDSMITH. How was that determined? Mr. CANNING. That was determined by his own testimony and also by the photographic record of many other photographers in the plaza at the time. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Thank you, Mrs. Downey. Now I understand from your testimony then that the first step is to determine the orientation of the President's head relative to Mr. Zapruder's camera. How did you proceed to make that determination? Mr. CANNING. We did it by means of what I call calibration photographs of an anthropometric replica of the President. Mr. GOLDSMITH. At this time I would ask that the witness be shown what has been marked for identification as JFK No. F-141. Mr. Canning, would you identify this exhibit, and after doing so, please explain what you mean by "calibration photograph"? Mr. CANNING. This is a photograph of a likeness, not intended to give the appearance but to have the same geometric form as the President, and it was photographed with reference markers adjacent to it so that we can make accurate interpretations of the photograph. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Are those reference marks indicated in the photograph? Mr. CANNING. Yes. The essence of the reference system is shown by that vertical line at the extreme right of the photograph with the little bead that is on it. That is a vertical line made with a plumb bob. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Was this the only calibration photograph that you made? 163 Mr. CANNING. We made a large array of photographs taken from angles like this but different by several degrees, both sideways and up and down. Mr. GOLDSMITH. What is the basic purpose of taking calibrated photographs? Mr. CANNING. The purpose is to make direct comparisons of frame 312 and the calibration photographs. The positions of various features relative to one another are studied in various combinations. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Does a calibrated photograph facilitate measurement? Mr. CANNING. I would hesitate to make that measurement any other way. It would call for just simply "eyeball" estimates to do it any other way that I know of. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Mr. Chairman, I move for the admission into the record of JFK F-141. Chairman STOKES. Without objection, it may be entered into the record. [The information follows:] JFK EXHIBIT F-141 Mr. GOLDSMITH. Mr. Canning, you made reference to an anthro- pometric replica that was used for this calibrated photograph. By whom was this replica prepared? Mr. CANNING. The replica was prepared by the Physical Anthropology Section of the Federal Aviation Administration. Mr. GOLDSMITH. What information did they use to prepare the replica of the President? Mr. CANNING. They used a large array of photographs that were obtained from the Archives of the United States. These photographs were all taken during the last 2 or 3 years of the President's life. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Did they also rely upon X-rays? Mr. CANNING. No. 164 Mr. GOLDSMITH. Why was an actual replica of the President's head necessary? Mr. CANNING. Because we wanted to have an objective model which showed the relative positions of all of the various features which one can actually see such as the back of the head, the position of the ear, which is very important, the projection of the nose beyond the rest of the facial profile, the shape of the brow, features of this sort. Mr. GOLDSMITH. You have indicated that the series of calibration photographs were taken. Would you describe somewhat the procedure for taking these photographs? Mr. CANNING. The dummy was placed in the middle of a large photographic studio on a pedestal and illumination was provided which gave at least a fair simulation of the sunlight illumination on the President's face at the time of the assassination. An array of camera positions was marked out on the floor of the studio in a large circle, and points on that circle were marked to establish the required directions from which pictures were to be taken. The camera was then positioned above these points on the floor at varying heights to get different slopes of a the line of sight to the dummy. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Did you encounter any difficulties in interpreting Zapruder frame 312? Mr. CANNING. Yes. It is really quite a difficult frame to work with. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Perhaps I would ask you to step up to that exhibit and point out the difficulties you encountered. Would someone please hand Mr. Canning a microphone? Mr. CANNING. It was quite critical in order to determine the angle of the head relative to the camera. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Excuse me, Mr. Canning, would you please step back? Mr. CANNING. Stand further back? I beg your pardon. How about if I move to here? We are interested in the relationships of such features as the back and front of the head and the ear. The background surrounding the President's head in the picture is very complicated. It contains elements of whatever object makes this blue feature between his face and Mrs. Kennedy's. There are pink regions which correspond to Mrs. Kennedy's suit, and then there are very dark regions which correspond to the lapel of her blouse. In inferior reproductions which are much more common than good ones, we are simply unable to locate the President's with precision. The immediately preceding Zapruder frames are similar in this regard. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Mr. Canning, you mentioned that this was an enhanced photograph. I realize this is an enlargement of that enhancement. Could you indicate generally what type of enhancement work was done in this photograph. Mr. CANNING. The principal effort was to achieve edge enhancement. This is a technique which I am not expert in, the techniques used. 165 The other feature of the reproduction process was the very careful attention paid to color. Both edge enhancement and the clear colors provide the vivid indication of his facial features. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Thank you, Mr. Canning. Please resume your seat. Now after taking these calibration photographs and studying frame 312, what did you determine the orientation of President Kennedy's head relative to Zapruder's line of sight to be? Mr. CANNING. That is most easily portrayed by going through the motions of establishing the relationship as I describe the process. Let me put myself in the position of being the President, and you, Mr. Goldsmith, in the position of Mr. Zapruder. I start out looking straight forward at you, then turn my head to my left like this, by 115(deg), namely, about 25(deg) past a perfect profile view, then if I nod my head forward by about 11(deg) and then tilt my head away from you by about 15', that gives you the right perspective. So let me go through those motions so it will be clear what I mean. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Please do. Mr. CANNING. First, the 115deg )turn like this, then a nod forward like this, and then tilt the head away like this. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Thank you. At this time I would ask that the witness be given the opportunity to examine JFK F-138. Mr. Canning, I am going to ask you to step up to the easel again. I am sorry. Actually this is a combination of two exhibits, and I would ask, Mr. Canning, that you identify the information contained in this exhibit. Mr. CANNING. The major part of this exhibit is a scaled reproduction of the topographic survey with a lot of detail removed for clarity. The position of the Presidential limousine at the time frame 312 is indicated. The insert is a scale representation of the rear portion of the limousine and the position of the President in the limousine is shown for the time of frame 312. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Where specifically in that exhibit is the President's orientation at 312 shown? Mr. CANNING. The emphasis is placed on showing that in the inset drawing, as we see him from directly above. Mr. GOLDSMITH. And what is the purpose of the other part of that exhibit? Mr. CANNING. It is to illustrate the angular position of the President's head relative to the line of sight from Mr. Zapruder's camera. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Now looking at the smaller limousine, I notice that there is a line going back to the book depository and there is also a line going in the other direction. Mr. CANNING. Yes. Mr. GOLDSMITH [continuing]. Approximately 85(deg). Where is that other line heading toward? Mr. CANNING. This is the location of Mr. Zapruder with his camera, and this is the location of the President's head at that time. 166 Mr. GOLDSMITH. Mr. Chairman, I move for the admission of this exhibit. Chairman STOKES. Without objection, it may be received into the record. [The information follows:] JFK EXHIBIT F-138 Mr. GOLDSMITH. Mr. Canning, I ask that you remain standing for the time being. Would you explain now what is the second step that you went through after having determined the orientation of the President's head relative to the Zapruder camera? What was the next procedure that you had to go through? Mr. CANNING. The next step is to identify the position of the wounds in his head, which are shown essentially at the ends of the solid lines shown in exhibit JFK F-138. This illustrates the positions of the wounds. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Once you have the wounds and you also have the orientation of the head relative to Zapruder's camera, are you able to determine the trajectory? Mr. CANNING. Yes. We can determine from the information here the direction of the trajectory by simply determining the angular difference in this plan view between the line from Zapruder's camera to the President's head and the line that is generated by drawing a straight line between the inshoot and outshoot wounds. Mr. GOLDSMITH. In effect, by doing that, are you determining the orientation of the President's head to the entire Dealey Plaza area? Mr. CANNING. This establishes the direction relationship between line of sight from Zapruder's camera and the bullet's trajectory. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Is it necessary to determine the orientation of the President's head not just to the line of sight of Zapruder's camera, but to the entire Dealey Plaza area? 167 Mr. CANNING. Yes, it is. Mr. GOLDSMITH. And how is that done? Mr. CANNING. That is done by locating the limousine, as was done using the U.S. Geological Survey analysis of the limousine's position. We can then determine the position of the camera's line of sight relative to Dealey Plaza at time of frame 312. Having determined that, we can then fix the direction of the line representing the trajectory direction. Mr. GOLDSMITH. I see. Mr. Canning, please remain standing, and at this time I would ask that you be given an opportunity to examine what has been marked as JFK No. F-139. Would you identify that exhibit, sir? Mr. CANNING. This is a side view, an elevation view, a good deal like an architect's drawing, which is consistent with the view that we have just been looking at, which was the plan view. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Is that diagram drawn to scale? Mr. CANNING. Yes. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Mr. Chairman, I move for the admission of this exhibit. Chairman STOKES. Without objection, it may be entered into the record at this point. [The information follows:] JFK EXHIBIT F-139 LINE OF SIGHT FROM ZAPRUDER CAMERA TO JFK/SLOPE OF BULLET CAUSING HEAD WOUND Mr. GOLDSMITH. Mr. Canning, at this time I would ask you to refer to both of the scaled diagrams before you, and explain the results of your trajectory analysis. Mr. CANNING. Going back to the previous exhibit, the direction from which the bullet came to strike the President, the rear of the President's head, and come out the right side, is portrayed in the Dealey Plaza. The indication is that the bullet started near where the trajectory line intercepts the face of the School Book Depository. 168 Mr. GOLDSMITH. Now earlier this morning you testified that a trajectory is characterized, or at least this kind of trajectory is characterized, by direction and slope. Are you now referring then to the direction aspect of the bullet's trajectory? Mr. CANNING. That is correct. Mr. GOLDSMITH. And what does the other diagram indicate? Mr. CANNING. Exhibit JFK F-139 indicates the slope of the trajectory based on the relative vertical positions of the inshoot and outshoot wounds and the position and attitude of the President's head. The line that is drawn through those two wounds terminates at a spot on the face of the Texas School Book Depository building as shown in the exhibit. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Now I notice that there is a circle drawn around the spot on the face of the building that you were just referring to. What does that circle signify? Mr. CANNING. That circle is intended to indicate the relative precision of the overall analysis. Mr. GOLDSMITH. In effect, then, does that reflect the margin of error? Mr. CANNING. Yes. Mr. GOLDSMITH. How did you determine what the margin of error was with regard to this trajectory? Mr. CANNING. I simply went through each stage of a trajectory analysis and made a point-by-point estimate of how accurately I could make that step. Having done that, I then made a simple analysis which indicated how those errors might combine, and the end result is shown here. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Would you summarize what steps you went through? Mr. CANNING. Well, the steps again go back essentially to the elements of determining the trajectory, as was shown on the earlier chart. It was difficult to determine the position of the outshoot wound with great precision. This was an important source of potential error. To establish the orientation of the President's head is the other part that gave great difficulty. Mr. GOLDSMITH. So I take it then that No. 2, locating the limousine, does not account for much error. Mr. CANNING. Very, very little. It is an unimportant source of error. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Fine. At this time I would ask that what has been marked as JFK No. F-122 be displayed. Mr. Canning, can you identify this item? Mr. CANNING. This is a photograph of the upper floors of the southeast corner region of the Texas School Book Depository building. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Mr. Chairman, I move for the admission of this item. Mr. DODD. Without objection, it is so ordered. [The information follows:] 169 JFK EXHIBIT F-122 Mr. GOLDSMITH. Mr. Canning, I would ask you now to indicate where in that building the circle reflecting the margin of error would be shown? Mr. CANNING. That is shown in an overlay which I prepared this morning. This is an approximation of that other circle. The reason that it is oval is because the perspective of this picture is very different from that in the drawing in exhibit JFK F-139. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Essentially that circle covers the top four floors of that building; is that correct? Mr. CANNING. Yes; it includes one, two, three, four floors and the roof of the building. It extends slightly beyond the building at the southeast corner and extends over to the edge of the photograph here. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Thank you, Mr. Canning. Please resume your seat. After completing the trajectory of the bullet that struck the President's head, what was the next trajectory that you attempted to derive? Mr. CANNING. The trajectory based on the back and neck wounds in the President. Mr. GOLDSMITH. And again I take it the first step would have been to establish the location of these wounds. Mr. CANNING. That is correct. Mr. GOLDSMITH. What information were you given by the committee's forensic pathologists with regard to the location of these wounds? Mr. CANNING. I was given the distances of the wounds relative to good reference points in the body. 170 Mr. GOLDSMITH. Was the location of the wound actually quantified for you? Mr. CANNING. Yes, it was. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Why was this necessary? Mr. CANNING. Again simply because of the first step in establishing a trajectory is that we must know as precisely as is reasonable the positions of those wounds. Mr. GOLDSMITH. How was the location of the wounds quantified? Mr. CANNING. It was determined from photographs that were taken during the autopsy and by measurements and notes that were taken at that time. Mr. GOLDSMITH. At this time I would ask that Mr. Canning be shown what has been marked as JFK F-376. Mr. Canning, are the President's wounds accurately represented in this exhibit in the manner that you used them in your trajectory analysis? Mr. CANNING. Yes. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Mr. Chairman, I move to admit this exhibit. Mr. DODD. Without objection, it is so ordered. [The information follows:] JFK EXHIBIT F-376 Mr. GOLDSMITH. Thank you. Would you now indicate where the President's back and neck wounds were located? Mr. CANNING. The inshoot wound using the right lateral view in that figure showed that the wound was very high in the shoulder, just below the base of the neck at the back, and the projectile passed very close to the seventh cervical vertebra and near the first thoracic vertebra. The outshoot was through front of the neck. 171 Mr. GOLDSMITH. You are now making reference--excuse me for interrupting--to the right lateral view? Mr. CANNING. That is correct. Mr. GOLDSMITH. And on the other part of that exhibit is a frontal view; is that correct? Mr. CANNING. And in the frontal view, the lateral positions of the two wounds are shown. The entry wound on the back was 41/2 centimeters to the right of the mid-plane of the body, and the neck wound was a small distance, about one-half centimeter to the left of the mid*plane. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Mrs. Downey, would you go to that exhibit and point to the location of the wounds? Mr. CANNING. The inshoot wound is as shown in the exhibit. It appears as the left-most wound in both diagrams. Mr. GOLDSMITH. And the outshoot in that? Mr. CANNING. And the outshoot is represented by the dark spot low in the neck and slightly to the viewer's right of center. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Thank you. Are these diagrams drawn to scale? Mr. CANNING. No. These diagrams are taken from Gray's Anatomy. They are tracings of parts of figures in that textbook. The dimensions are the key information. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Did you have to make any adjustments to the information that you were given concerning the President's wounds in order to construct your back neck trajectory? Mr. CANNING. Yes, I did. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Why was this necessary? Mr. CANNING. Because the President, when these wounds were identified and measured, was lying in the autopsy position, which was very unlike his normal posture. Mr. GOLDSMITH. How did you actually proceed to make the adjustments? Mr. CANNING. I worked with the people at the FAA in Oklahoma City, the anthropological group there, and we made measurements of typical skin mobility. We studied this in order to find out how the wounds moved when the President was manipulated from his position and posture at the time he was wounded to the position and posture during the autopsy. Mr. GOLDSMITH. What actual adjustment did you eventually make with regard to these wounds? Mr. CANNING. The major adjustment was that during the autopsy, the President's head was pointed straightforward and was tilted back, so that he was essentially "looking at the sky," as a way of thinking of it, by about 35'. And when we return him to a normal posture, by lowering his chin, that wound, the neck wound, moves down about a centimeter. When the wound was inflicted, it has been concluded that his head was turned sharply to his right and that resulted in a small movement of the neck wound to Mr. Kennedy's right at the time. Also he was observed to have his right shoulder elevated in order to place his elbow on the side of the car. This didn't affect the position of the neck wound but it did elevate the position of back wound slightly. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Did you have to make similar adjustments in the case of the President's head wound? 172 Mr. CANNING. No. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Why not? Mr. CANNING. Because the upper part of the head, is a rigid object, so wounds are not displaced by changes in position or attitude. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Fine. Now as I recall, you used frame 312 of the Zapruder movie to construct the head shot trajectory. What frame of the Zapruder movie did you use for the back neck trajectory? Mr. CANNING. I related the back neck trajectory to the positions at Zapruder frame 190. Mr. GOLDSMITH. At this time I ask that JFK F-226 be shown to the witness. Can you identify that item? Mr. CANNING. That appears to be frame 190. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Mr. Chairman, I move for the admission of this exhibit. Chairman STOKES. Without objection, it may be entered into the record at this point. [The information follows:] JFK EXHIBIT F-226 Mr. GOLDSMITH, Thank you. Why was this specific frame used to determine the trajectory of the back neck shot? Mr. CANNING. During the investigation several weeks ago, there were indications that suggested this would be a proper time to consider for a first wound, in particular the investigations of the acoustics panel led to selection of this for our study at that time. 173 Mr. GOLDSMITH. Did you also rely upon any input by the photographic evidence panel? I am referring now specifically to the jiggle analysis that was performed by them. Mr. CANNING. Yes, those two studies went on at the same time, and I tend in my own mind to sort of equate them, not that they are necessarily interchangeable. Mr. GOLDSMITH. You did not participate in the acoustics study or in the jiggle study, did you? Mr. CANNING. No. Mr. GOLDSMITH. So you were simply given that information. Mr. CANNING. That is correct. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Mrs. Downey is going to refer your attention to the survey map, and I believe that the USGS indicated what the location of the limousine was for frame 193. Mr. CANNING. That is correct. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Why did they give you frame 193, do you know? Mr. CANNING. As I understand it, it was because they got superior alinements of reference points for that. Mr. GOLDSMITH. What adjustment, if any, did you have to make to locate the limousine in frame 190? Mr. CANNING. I moved it, I moved the limousine, to the rear in order to account for its motion between frames 190 and 193. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Approximately how great a distance did you move the limousine? Mr. CANNING. A little less than 3 feet. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Pardon me? Mr. CANNING. A little less than 3 feet. Mr. GOLDSMITH. What is your estimated margin of error for relocating the limousine? Mr. CANNING. Oh, perhaps 6 inches. Mr. GOLDSMITH. In addition to the Zapruder film, Mr. Canning, what photographic evidence did you rely upon with the back neck trajectory? Mr. CANNING. The key photograph on which I relied was a photograph taken by Mr. Robert Croft. Mr. GOLDSMITH. I would ask that JFK No. F-135 be displayed. Would you identify this item, Mr. Canning? Mr. CANNING. This is a photograph that was provided me by the staff that had been taken by Mr. Croft. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Mr. Chairman, I move for the admission of this exhibit. Chairman STOKES. Without objection, it may be entered into the record at this point. [The information follows:] 174 JFK EXHIBIT F-135 Mr. GOLDSMITH. Did you rely upon any other photographic material, Mr. Canning? Mr. CANNING. Yes, there were other photographs taken during this period which were quite useful, in particular a photograph taken by Mr. Willis. Mr. GOLDSMITH. I would ask that JFK No. 155 be shown to the witness and entered into the record. Chairman STOKES. Without objection, it may be entered into the record. [The information follows:] 175 JFK EXHIBIT F-155 Mr. GOLDSMITH. Would you generally indicate, Mr. Canning, for what purpose you used these two photographs? Mr. CANNING. I used these to determine the posture of the President and his orientation relative to his surroundings. Mr. GOLDSMITH. What frames of the Zapruder film did these photographs correspond with? Mr. CANNING. The Croft picture corresponds with frame 161. The Willis photograph corresponds with frame 202. Mr. GOLDSMITH. How were these determinations made? Mr. CANNING. They were determined by establishing lines of sight, in the case of the Willis photograph, between the photographer Willis and the photographer Zapruder. Zapruder can be seen over the left shoulder of the Secret Service agent standing on the following limousine, and in the Zapruder frame 202, one can see the photographer Willis taking his picture. I think you also asked for the determination of how the other one was taken. It was done by similar methods but it was not quite so direct, to determine the time of the Croft picture. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Was this information given to you by members of the photography panel? Mr. CANNING. Yes. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Would you step to the easel now, Mr. Canning, and indicate how the orientation of the President at the time of the back neck shot was determined? Mr. CANNING. The principal data which we have to establish the position of the President is this photograph. There are many others that give his general habit of sitting, but this one is particularly useful. It shows the form of his shoulder fairly clearly. We don't 176 see his far shoulder because of the photographic aspect, so we know that he has not turned sharply to his right. He is looking forward, but the key information here is the way in which he is seen to hunch forward. There is a considerable curvature of his back. Despite his torso leaning forward, he held his head in an essentially level position. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Now you indicated that this photograph corre- sponds approximately with the Zapruder frame 161. Mr. CANNING. That is correct. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Assuming that the back neck shot occurred at Frame 190, what would be the time differential between the time this photograph was taken and the time that Zapruder 190 was exposed? Mr. CANNING. At 18 frames per second, we are talking about a difference of almost 30 frames, so it is slightly over 1 1/2 seconds. Mr. GOLDSMITH. What additional information did you obtain from the Willis photograph on your right, Mr. Canning? Mr. CANNING. Essentially from the Willis photograph, which corresponds to frame 202, we obtained confirmation that the President's head was turned rather sharply to his right, and a further suggestion that his shoulders have not turned very much during the period between the Croft picture and the Willis picture. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Thank you. Please resume your seat. What frames of the Zapruder movie, if any, did you rely upon in determining the President's orientation? Mr. CANNING. I relied on several frames between 160 and 200 largely those selected for clarity. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Did you conduct any photo calibration study with regard to this trajectory analysis? Mr. CANNING. No. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Why is it that you conducted one in the case of the head wound but not in the case of the back neck wound? Mr. CANNING. Because the head is a relatively rigid object and is not subject to deformation due to changes in position, whereas the body is, and we did not want to build an anthropometric dummy that would give a false impression of precision or knowledge. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Would you summarize now what you determined the President's orientation at the time of the back neck bullet to be? Mr. CANNING. Largely from this picture and from the subsequent study of the Zapruder pictures, I concluded that he was hunched forward somewhere between 11 and 18 degrees forward of vertical, in the upper torso, and that his shoulders were either facing straight ahead in the car or were turned slightly to the right of straight ahead. Mr. GOLDSMITH. At this time I would ask that the witness be shown JFK F-140 and F-142. Mr. Canning, I am sorry to do this to you, but I am going to ask you to step to the easel again. For the record, the exhibit marked JFK F-140 is entitled "Direction of Bullet Causing JFK Back Neck Wound," and the one marked 142 is entitled "Slope of Bullet Causing JFK Back Neck Wound." 177 Mr. Canning, would you identify these two exhibits? Mr. CANNING. The one on the direction of the bullet causing the back neck wound is the one here on our left. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Mr. Chairman, I move for the admission of both of these items. Chairman Stokes. Without objection, they may be entered into the record at this point. [The information follows:] JFK EXHIBIT F-140 JFK EXHIBIT F-142 Mr. GOLDSMITH. Again I take it that by referring to the trajectory by means of direction and slope, that is simply consistent with your earlier testimony. 178 Mr. CANNING. That is true. Mr. GOLDSMITH. That is how trajectory is characterized. Mr. CANNING. That is correct. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Fine. Would you proceed now to summarize your results of the back neck bullet trajectory? Mr. CANNING. The position of the wounds in the President are shown at this small scale in this highly schematic form as entering just to the right of his neck, just to the right of his center plane, and exiting the forward part of his neck, and we then can establish a line like that shown in the inset relative to the limousine. The angular position of his torso, as I mentioned, was very slightly to the right of forward, perhaps straightforward. We can't be more precise than that. Then transferring this information into the small image of the limousine placed in the plaza for frame 190, and keeping the same angular relationship between the wound line and the line along the side of the car, we can then draw a line showing the direction of the trajectory back up toward the school book depository. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Mr. Canning, when you made reference to keeping the same angular relationship with respect to--what were you referring? Mr. CANNING. I was referring to the angular relationship between this arrow and the side of the limousine, this line and the side of the limousine. Mr. GOLDSMITH. And would you point to the end of that trajectory, in other words, where, in the building, that took you? Mr. CANNING. This point on the face of the building is slightly to the west of the first window, at the southeast corner of the building. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Fine. Would you now explain the slope of the trajectory based upon the JFK back neck wound? Mr. CANNING. Here again we see where the back wound was. We can see in the insert sketch of JFK F-142 some of the key information regarding the position of his shoulders. His right shoulder appears to be slightly elevated relative to his left, as determined from Zapruder's pictures, between frames 160 and 200. We include the wound position data interpreted from the forensic pathologist report as modified to account for change in the President's posture and movement of his torso. The resulting difference in height of his back and neck wounds relative to the car gives us the slope relative to the car. Then we place the car on the sloping street in Dealey Plaza and maintain this same angular relationship between this line labeled "To Gun" in the exhibit and the line along the side of the limousine body. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Mr. Canning, are these two exhibits drawn to scale? Mr. CANNING. Yes. Mr. GOLDSMITH. What is the margin of error indicated by the circle drawn around the end point of the trajectory? Mr. CANNING. I believe the radius of the circle is about 13 feet. Mr. GOLDSMITH. How was that determined? 179 Mr. CANNING. This was determined as before on the head wound case simply by making an estimate of the contribution of error at each stage of the analysis, and then combining those in order to obtain an estimate of the overall accuracy. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Why was your margin of error less in this case than in the case of the head shot? Mr. CANNING. In considerable measure because the distance from the limousine to the termination of this line was shorter. Mr. GOLDSMITH. At this time I would ask that the witness be shown JFK No. F-122. Would you indicate on this exhibit, Mr. Canning, where that margin of error circle would be shown? Mr. CANNING. That margin of error circle is shown again in the handwrought curves produced this morning as this red ellipse in the overlay over the photograph. Mr. GOLDSMITH. What was the most significant factor in this particular margin of error? In other words, what was your greatest difficulty? Mr. CANNING. Essentially in determining, in making an estimate of the rotation of the President's shoulders relative to looking straight ahead, and in estimating what the inclination of his torso was from that one photograph. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Mr. Canning, what impact would it have on your analysis if you were to reconstruct this trajectory based upon Zapruder frame 197? For example, that is when the acoustics panel says that the President may have been shot. If you were to reconstruct the trajectory at that frame, what effect would that have? Mr. CANNING. I should have the plan view exhibit marked "JFK F-140" as well. The relationships that we established in this exhibit gave us a line indicating the direction of the trajectory relative to the limousine itself. We have no good information that says that this relationship changed importantly with time. Therefore we would simply move the limousine to the new position and allow the trajectory line to travel with it; the result would be that the end point would move a short distance to the left in the figure and slightly upward as well, because the car is moving away from the building. So this point will not only move to the west, but it will rise, but it won't rise more than just a few feet. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Thank you, sir. Would you resume your seat now? Mr. CANNING. Yes. Mr. GOLDSMITH. At this time, Mr. Canning, I would like you to discuss the single bullet theory trajectory that you constructed. My first question, is, again going by that chart, "Elements to Determining Trajectory," what information were you given about the location of Governor Connally's wounds? Mr. CANNING. I was given the information that was generated by the medical reports at Parkland Hospital where his surgery was done, and more recently I examined the information in terms of the reported damage to his fifth rib. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Of the wounds incurred by Mr. Connally, which did you rely upon for your analysis? Mr. CANNING. Just the entrance wound. 180 Mr. GOLDSMITH. Why is that? Mr. CANNING. Because of the considerable likelihood of larger deflections of the bullet's path in passing through him, since it hit his rib. The likelihood of deflection is greater than in the case of passage through the soft tissues of Mr. Kennedy's neck. Mr. GOLDSMITH. What two points were you using to construct this particular trajectory? Mr. CANNING. I was using the construction of a line based on the exit wound from Mr. Kennedy's neck, and the entrance wound as the bullet went into Mr. Connally's back. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Was any attempt made to quantify the location of the entry wound in Mr. Connally's back? Mr. CANNING. Yes. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Why was that considered to be necessary? Mr. CANNING. It is again necessary for step No. 1. We must know where those wounds are located in order to do the job. Mr. GOLDSMITH. To what extent did you rely upon this information? Mr. CANNING. I used the Parkland Hospital information. Mr. GOLDSMITH. You stated you used the Parkland Hospital information. To what extent did you also rely upon, if you did at all, the information given to you by the committee's autopsy panel? Mr. CANNING. I received information from the committee's autopsy panel on Sunday morning, September 10, 1978, this last Sunday, and I examined it to see if it was consistent with the early information, and I could find no important discrepancy. Mr. GOLDSMITH. At this time I would ask that the witness be shown what has been marked for identification as JFK No. F-377. Mrs. Downey, would you assist us by pointing to that exhibit at Mr. Canning's direction? Referring to this exhibit, Mr. Canning, is Governor Connally's entry wound represented in the manner that you used it in your analysis. Mr. CANNING. Yes, that is correct. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Would you indicate now where those wounds are indicated? Mr. CANNING. The wound was just inward, just toward the center plane of his body from his armpit, and it was high enough so that it could be consistent with a projectile striking his fifth rib. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Mrs. Downey is now pointing to the entry wound? Mr. CANNING. That is correct. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Thank you. Thank you, Mrs. Downey. Is this exhibit drawn to scale? Mr. CANNING. It is dimensioned properly. It is actually a drawing that is based on a figure in Gray's Anatomy. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Mr. Chairman, I move for the admission of this item into the record. Chairman STOKES. Without objection, it may be entered into the record. [The information follows:] 181 JFK EXHIBIT F-377 Mr. GOLDSMITH. You testified earlier, Mr. Canning, that you had to make adjustments in the locations of President Kennedy's wound, President Kennedy's back neck wound, I understand. Did you have to make a similar adjustment in the case of Governor Connally's entry wound? Mr. CANNING. No; I didn't note any major change from the position shown. Mr. GOLDSMITH. What frame of the Zapruder film did you use to construct the single bullet theory trajectory? Mr. CANNING. I used the same time of the frame 190 as I used for the back neck wound. Mr. GOLDSMITH. So are you saying that the only thing that changed is that you now had to work in Governor Connally's wound locations in his orientation? Mr. CANNING. That is correct. Mr. GOLDSMITH. So the position of the limousine was the same. Mr. CANNING. Yes. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Did you do any additional work on President Kennedy's orientation? Mr. CANNING. I did no additional work on the President's orientation. Mr. GOLDSMITH. How was Governor Connally's alinement relative to President Kennedy determined? Mr. CANNING. It was determined from the photographic record, from the Zapruder pictures and others. Mr. GOLDSMITH. At this time I would ask that the witness be shown what has been marked as JFK F-136 and F-143. F-136 is an enlargement of a photograph taken by the photographer named Betzner, and F-143 is a scaled sketch that depicts the relative alinement of President Kennedy and Governor Connally as 182 that relative alinement has been deduced from the photographic evidence. I move for the admission of these two items, Mr. Chairman. Chairman STOKES. Without objection, they may be entered into the record at this point. [The information follows:] JFK EXHIBIT F-136 183 JFK EXHIBIT F-143 Mr. GOLDSMITH. Mr. Canning, I would ask you to step to the easel again. Before I ask any further questions I should correct my earlier statement. F-136 actually has four pictures in it. The one at the upper left is the Betzner photograph, and the one in the upper right is a partial enlargement of a section of that Betzner photograph. The two photographs at the bottom are photographs of the Presidential limousine used on that day. Mr. Canning, do you know with what frame of the Zapruder film the Betzner photograph corresponds? Mr. CANNING. That corresponds with frame 186. Mr. GOLDSMITH. And was that determined by use of the same method to which you referred earlier? Mr. CANNING. It was determined by precisely the same method sighting over the shoulder of the Secret Service agent to the photographer Zapruder. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Now using the two exhibits that are before you, sir, I would ask you to indicate to the committee how the relative position of Governor Connally to President Kennedy was determined. Mr. CANNING. This involves working our way from the big picture, if you will, into small details, and then relating those to a drawing, the drawing of the limousine,. Let me start by identifying a few features just for orientation. We see the well-known Stemmons Freeway sign here, the photographer Zapruder. You can see the President's head down here highlighted by the sun, and we can see a bright spot here, which is the siren on the Secret Service vehicle which is following the Presidential limousine. 184 Going to the greatly enlarged inset, we see again the Stemmons Freeway sign. We see the siren, and we again see the President's head. Now going further into this picture, looking for minute detail, we see, for instance, the spare tire enclosure on the Presidential limousine, and then looking very carefully we can see a rectangular object here. That rectangular object is a handhold which is on the trunk lid of the limousine. It is intended for the Secret Service men to hold on to when they are riding on the rear of the car. Another feature that we see in this photograph is a diagonal feature here labeled No. 2, and this diagonal feature is the frame of the small window which was in front of and slightly to the right of Governor Connally. We can see that frame, and there is nothing to obstruct our view of it. So what we can do is to draw a line of sight from Mr. Betzner's camera, past the corner of the handhold over to the frame, let me show what that does on the photograph of the Presidential limousine. One item in the large picture which I did not mention is, a man in the foreground; his shoulder and arm are obscuring everything to the left. That is what the dark object is. So we do not see Governor Connally in this picture. But the photograph puts a very stringent limit on how far to the right in the automobile the Governor can be sitting; that is, it says that the Governor must be sitting to the left of the line of sight past the man in the foreground. Now to make this quantitative, we have drawn in, on a scale drawings of the limousine, the line from Mr. Betzner's camera past the inboard corner of the Secret Service handhold, and extended it forward to the position that is seen in the photograph. We also notice that in the Betzner photograph the line of sight passes right by the tip of the President's left shoulder. It is remarkably clear that that is the case. So we have drawn the President in this position with his left shoulder along that line of sight. Since we know that we can see to the left of that by a short distance, and by careful triangulation, based on the known distance between the right-hand handle and the left one, we can then find out how much farther across toward the left we can see along this line of sight. We then constructed this line, and we know then that Governor Connally was to the left of that line at the time of the Betzner picture. This graphical reconstruction fixes the relative positions of the men quite satisfactorily. Mr. GOLDSMITH. So in essence the line of sight from Mr. Betzner to the limousine establishes the point, furthermost point, to the right in the limousine in which the Governor could be sitting. Mr. CANNING. That is correct. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Now why did you place the Governor in that plan view diagram as far to the right as you did? Mr. CANNING. The Zapruder pictures tell us that he is not very much farther away, and so in order to make a clear and conservative analysis, I placed him in that position. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Thank you. Please resume your seat, Mr. Canning. Mr. Canning, before I ask you to resume your seat, I would like you to review some frames in the Zapruder movie with us. 185 At this time I would ask that Mr. Canning be shown what has been marked as JFK Nos. 223, 229, 232, 236, and 240. These correspond with the Zapruder Frames No. 187, 193, 196, 200, and 204. Did you rely upon these frames in your analysis, Mr. Canning? Mr. CANNING. Yes. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Would you indicate in what manner you relied upon them to determine the Governor's orientation? Mr. CANNING. The principal information we have on the Governor from these pictures is shown extremely clearly in this frame. We can see that his head is facing essentially straight, perpendicular to the line of the car, and we can see rather clearly his necktie, which indicates that his torso is turned somewhat past the line of sight from Mr. Zapruder's camera at the time. This then is a basis for an estimate of the angular orientation of his torso. We follow those same features, sometimes good pictures, sometimes blurry pictures, and we find that his orientation changes, but he is always turned substantially to the right during this time period. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Mr. Canning, referring now to the Croft photograph behind the Zapruder frames, Mrs. Downey, could you possibly move that forward? Mr. CANNING. That is a good idea. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Thank you. As part of your trajectory analysis, Mr. Canning, did you have to determine the distance between the President and the Governor? Mr. CANNING. Yes. The distance between the President's neck and the Governor's back is an important part of the trajectory determination. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Do you recall what that distance was measured to be? Mr. CANNING. It is about 60 centimeters. Mr. GOLDSMITH. And did you have to determine the relative height of the two men? Mr. CANNING. Yes. It is apparent from the photograph that the President is sitting considerably higher than the Governor, and analysis was made to make that as quantitatively as accurate as possible. Mr. GOLDSMITH. What input, if any, did the committee's photographic evidence panel have in assisting you with those measurements? Mr. CANNING. The photographic panel did the analysis which gave the height difference between the men. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Did you use any calibration photographs in attempting to determine the orientation of Governor Connally? Mr. CANNING. No. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Why not? Mr. CANNING. It was not particularly important to determine the actual conformation of the Governor's body; only his body's position was critical. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Mr. Chairman, at this time I move for the admission of JFK Nos. F-223, F-229, F-232, F-236, and F-240. Chairman STOKES. Without objection, they may be entered into the record at this point. [The information follows:] 186 JFK EXHIBIT F-223 JFK EXHIBIT F-229 187 JFK EXHIBIT F-232 JFK EXHIBIT F-236 188 JFK EXHIBIT F-240 Mr. GOLDSMITH. Thank you. I would ask at this time that the witness be shown what have been marked for identification as JFK Nos. F-144 and F-145. Those can simply be placed on top of the Zapruder frames that we have. Mr. Canning, can you identify these two items? Mr. CANNING. These are scale drawings of a portion of the limousine, and of Dealey Plaza showing the position of the structures and the limousine at the time of Frame 190. The other exhibit is the corresponding elevation view showing the same information seen by a person viewing it from a great distance perpendicular to the trajectory direction line. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Are these two exhibits designed to show the direction and slope of the trajectory? Mr. CANNING. That is correct. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Mr. Chairman, I move for the admission of these two exhibits. Chairman STOKES. Without objection, they may be entered into the record. [The information follows:] 189 JFK EXHIBIT F-144 JFK EXHIBIT F-145 Mr. GOLDSMITH. Mr. Canning, at this time I would like to ask you to explain your analysis of the single bullet theory trajectory, in light of these two exhibits. Mr. CANNING. The inset is simply a replica of the drawing which we had before with the two lines established as lines of sight from Mr. Betzner's camera, with the President in the position that that analysis determined, the Governor in the position that that analysis showed, and then we have indicated schematically where the Governor's wound would show, and where the President's neck wound would show, to establish a line relative--again in the frame of reference of the limousine now, which would extend to the gun. 190 We then take this drawing and reduce it in size and place it in the correct position and angular orientation in the plaza, and take this same line with the same angular orientation relative to the limousine, and extend it to show the direction of the single bullet theory trajectory. The side view picture using in large measure the information from the Croft photograph illustrates again the position of the back and neck wounds. We do not use the information for the President's back wound, just the information from his neck wound, and for Governor Connally's back wound and the relative positions and relative heights are registered in this drawing. We simply draw a straight line from Governor Connally's inshoot wound through the President's outshoot wound and extend the line toward the point from which the gun was thus deduced to have been fired. The side view of the limousine is shown as if it were on level ground. Therefore when we show it in the main part of the exhibit we preserve the angular relationship between the trajectory slope line and the body of the car. When this line is extended in the main part of the exhibit, it intercepts the face of the Texas School Book Depository as shown in exhibit JFK F-145. Mr. GOLDSMITH. What is the margin of error indicated on this particular diagram, Mr. Canning? Mr. CANNING. It is a little bit over 5 feet in radius. Mr. GOLDSMITH. How was this margin of error determined? Mr. CANNING. It was determined in the same manner as before, simply by estimating the contributions to uncertainty contributed at each stage of the trajectory determination. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Why is this particular margin of error so much less than the others? Mr. CANNING. This is illustrated by JFK F-145. The distance between the two men, about 60 centimeters or 2 feet, is about five times as great as that between the President's back and neck wounds. Therefore there can be much larger errors in determining relative positions of the wounds without increasing the resulting angular errors. The same contrast applies also to the accuracy of the single bullet trajectory relative to that of the head wounds case. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Mr. Canning, to what extent, if any, would your results be different if you were to reconstruct the trajectory based upon the limousine's location in Zapruder Frame 197? Mr. CANNING. Again the effect would be exactly the same as it would be in the case of the back neck wound. The final point would move, to the east and would rise slightly by just a matter of a few feet. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Would it move to the east or to the west? Mr. CANNING. It would move to the east and up. Mr. GOLDSMITH. And would you indicate in that diagram which direction is east? Mr. CANNING. East is to our left in this diagram. I beg your pardon. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Wouldn't that be the west? Mr. CANNING. It is west. I knew I would blow that one. I said west one time and it was almost funny. 191 Yes, that is correct. This is to the west, and I think I said east earlier as well. That should be corrected. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Thank you. Mr. Canning, you may resume your seat now. I am going to ask Mrs. Downey to work the overlay on exhibit No. 122. Thank you. Mr. Canning, would you describe the margin of error as indicated on the overlay of exhibit 122? Mr. CANNING. That is the smallest oval which I generated this morning for the single bullet theory. It is black in the overlay. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Mrs. Downey, would you point to that oval, please? Thank you. Mr. Canning, each of the three trajectories that you constructed had different slope, different direction, and a different margin of error. What consequence, if any can you attribute to these differences? Mr. CANNING. The differences may well arise simply because all measurements are imprecise, and it would simply be unrealistic to expect the slopes and directions to be identical. Mr. GoLDSMITH. Thank you very much, Mr. Canning. I have no further questions. Chairman STOKES. The procedure at this point will be that the Chair will recognize the gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Sawyer, for such time as he may consume, after which the committee will operate under the 5-minute rule. The Chair at this time recognizes Mr. Sawyer. Mr. SAWYER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. If I understand the procedure that you went through, you did not attempt to force the end of the line pointing toward the gun. You let it fall where it may, starting from the wound, in effect, the position of the limo and the assumed posture based on the best evidence you could get. Mr. CANNING. That is correct. Mr. SAWYER. I am still a little puzzled why the marked improvement in the margin of error on the last diagram. You didn't change the angle through the President or the line of flight, presumed line of flight, of the bullet? Mr. CANNING. Yes, those two angles are different. The line of sight that one obtains by using Governor Connally's back wound and President Kennedy's neck wound is slightly different from the angle which is determined by using the President's wounds alone. Mr. SAWYER. So then by taking into account then the wounds on Governor Connally forced some kind of a caused alteration in either the line of the bullet or the posture of the President? Mr. CANNING. Well, I want to be sure that I am responding to your question. I am not saying that the bullet's travel itself was affected. What I am saying is that our interpretation of the data tells us that if we were to determine one trajectory based on the two pieces of information, one the Governor's wound, and the President's neck wound, that that will give us one line. The other wound, the other wound pair in the President, will give us a second line. Those two lines do not coincide simply 192 because of experimental error. We cannot expect to make all of the myriad of measurements such as wound location, body position and limousine position with absolute perfection. Therefore we expect slightly different answers. The two trajectories should be close enough so that they fall within a reasonable error of one another, which is what we found. Mr. SAWYER. If we were to start at the other end then and assume that a bullet were fired at the approximate time we have determined from the sixth floor of the depository, would it have of necessity given the wounds in the President, would it of necessity, based on what you have determined as to locations somewhat, also have hit Governor Connally? Mr. CANNING. The bullet would have had to have been substantially deflected by passing through the President in order to miss the Governor. It seems almost inevitable that the Governor would be hit with the alinements that we have found. Mr. SAWYER. So that if we assume, as apparently is the fact, that this jacketed bullet did not hit anything solid in the way of bone in the President but only traversed the soft tissue of the neck, and presuming the approximate location of the limousine at the time and the posture as nearly as can be determined of the President at that time, that in your view then, absent a deflection of that bullet, it could not have missed Governor Connally. Mr. CANNING. That is my view, yes. Mr. SAWYER. I think that is all. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman STOKES. The time of the gentleman has expired. The gentleman from Connecticut, Mr. Dodd. Mr. DODD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I wonder whether or not you listened to the narration of Mr. Blakey with regard to the test done by the Warren Commission, a test trying to determine trajectory back in 1964. Are you familiar with the process the Warren Commission went through? Mr. CANNING. Yes, I have read the Warren Commission report, the summary volumes. Mr. DODD. Could you comment? There has been a lot of criticism over the years on whether or not that was the best kind of an examination and test that could have been used at the time to determine trajectory. Would you care to comment on the type of test that the Warren Commission used in that year to determine trajectory? Mr. CANNING. Well, in a sense I feel that they were not testing the ability to determine a trajectory. They were testing the inconsistency of a trajectory with a hypothesis. The hypothesis was that a bullet was in fact fired from the southeast corner of the school book depository at the sixth floor, and that they were then observing the consistency of the facts with that hypothesis. Mr. DODD. In other words, they had reached a conclusion and they were trying to determine or prove that conclusion. Mr. CANNING. That is the way I read it, yes. Mr. DODD. And from what I understand from listening to your testimony this morning, you assumed no particular position but 193 rather took the three elements that you outlined in the beginning, and then worked backwards to a possible location. Mr. CANNING. That is correct. To the best of my ability, I put myself in the position of assuming that no gun was found and simply say where would I look? Mr. DODD. Could I ask for exhibit, I think it is, No. 312? It is the enhanced enlarged photograph. Could I ask that to be placed up, as well as the--what is the proper word you used to describe the recreation? Mr. CANNING. The calibration photograph. Mr. DODD. Yes, the calibration photograph, the calibration photograph as well. Mr. Canning, could I ask you to go over there near both of these exhibits? I looked down, while you were testifying, and took a closer look at them again. I realize I am looking at them from a layman's point of view. But when I look at the President's head in the enhanced photograph on the left and then at the calibrated photograph on the right, I get--and again I am prefacing my remarks by saying I am a layman--but I see a much more severe pitch to the President's head in the enhanced photograph than I see in the calibrated photograph and I wonder if you could explain. I detect what I see as an ear and an eye in the enhanced photograph, and maybe the images are playing games with me, and if they are, I would like you to straighten me out. Mr. CANNING. I can assure you the images play games with you. There are many complicated details in the part of the photograph surrounding the President's head. For instance, the dark lapel of Mrs. Kennedy's blue blouse has a notch which is in close juxtaposition with the President's nose. The notch makes it look as if the President's nose extends much farther than it really does. Mr. DODD. That is correct. That is how I saw it. Mr. CANNING. On the other hand, when we account for where other pink and blue elements are and behind the President's face we conclude that his facial profile is well to the left of its apparent position when only a cursory examination is the basis. The interpretation of these features is certainly one of the major sources of potential error in the analysis. Mr. DODD. In your analysis? Mr. CANNING. Yes. Mr. DoDD. As I understood your testimony about light, you tried to recreate the sunlight on the President's head that day. That looks like an awfully large ear, in the enhanced photograph, but if that is not, obviously that is not the size of his ear. But it would appear to me that the reflection of light is giving what would appear to be a larger image than is actually the case, and yet in your other photograph over here, you don't seem to indicate the same degree of light on his ear as you do in the enhanced photograph. Mr. CANNING. That is correct. We have a problem of in the first place spatial resolution, actually fixing the size of something. Mr. DODD. I am sorry, I didn't hear what you said. Mr. CANNING. We have a problem of fixing the exact size of a small object in a blurry photograph. I might point out that frame 194 312 is one of the better ones, but it is still difficult to work with. I am getting a little bit outside of my area of expertise but I know enough about it for this purpose I think. The image of the President's ear is very brightly overexposed where the sunshine fell on it, and so it appears larger than it would appear if it were not overexposed; that is to say the size of this ear does not look right. On the other hand, if we were to have a print of this that was of diminished intensity, then the image of the ear would look somewhat smaller. It doesn't change its position, however. Mr. DODD. I am tempted to ask you, just on your last statement, the fact that this is the one area that could change the conclusions that you have reached, to what degree? Did you at all try to calculate by moving around the President's head in the enhanced photograph, allowing for a degree of error in your calibrated photograph, and then make a calculation as to how far off you would be? Mr. CANNING. Essentially what I did was I to take measurements of the various image features in the enhanced versions of frame 312 and compared them with those same measurements taken from the calibration photographs that were taken at adjacent angular positions. I then made an effort to find out to what degree I could have interpreted this picture wrongly. I concluded that I could be off by easily 2' and 2(')'translates into quite a large change in the overall trajectory error. Mr. DODD. Let me jump ahead. Two degrees, 2' what does that do to the yellow line? That is the area I presume you are talking about? Mr. CANNING. Yes, this yellow line--Mr. DoDD. Which exhibit number is that? Mr. GOLDSMITH. That is No. F-122, Congressman. Mr. DODD. Thank you. What does that do to that yellow line? Mr. CANNING. Well, it is a major part of the size of the largest error oval in the exhibit marked JFK-122. I do not try to recollect the precise number that I attributed to the interpretation of that photograph, but it was a substantial fraction of the total accuracy. Mr. DODD. Is it possible that we would move away from the Texas School Book Depository into another building? Mr. CANNING. All that would happen if we were to estimate a larger potential error is that this largest circle would get bigger. The position of the center doesn't tend to move, but it allows more possibilities; that is, only the size of the circle is affected. You see, it is conceivable that the bullet came down from an adjacent building, if one is to take a literal interpretation of the largest area; that is, this yellow pattern. It is conceivable that it was fired from anywhere in this circle. Mr. DODD. Thank you. Thank you very much. Chairman STOKES. The time of the gentleman has expired. I will let the doctor get back to the table. I have just one question, and it has to do with the slope. Isn't the reason that there is a different slope because different points are being used through which you drew the trajectory line, that is, the back neck trajectory uses the JFK back wound as Point 1, and the JFK neck wound as Point 2, and under the single bullet 195 theory the trajectory uses the JFK neck wound as Point 1, and the Connally entry wound as Point 27 Is that understanding correct? Mr. CANNING. That is exactly right. Chairman STOKES. Thank you. The gentleman from Indiana, Mr. Fithian. Mr. FITHIAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Canning, by your calibration, how much higher is the top of President Kennedy's head than Governor Connally's head at the crucial time? Mr. CANNING. There have been several measurements of that made. Using the Croft photograph I made one determination, but this is not my special field, and so we had a representative of the photographic panel do the job. His determination was that the President's head was 8 centimeters above the top of the Governor's head relative to the limousine, and then since the limousine is going down a slope, that increases the relative height difference slightly as well. Mr. FITHIAN. So you are saying it would be 8 centimeters plus the tilt of the limousine determined by the slope? Mr. CANNING. That is correct, the slope and the distance between the two men's heads. Mr. FITHIAN. And did anyone on the panel working with the pathologists or X-rays or whatever, make any further analysis of what I would call the anatomical differences of the two men, that is, longer neck or larger head or whatever would throw the bullet off?. Mr. CANNING. I accounted for those differences, and the principal difference which will introduce an effect on the trajectory is well recorded in the Croft photograph. The Governor's head is quite a lot taller from the top of his shoulders to the top of his head than that of the President. At a glance this is not particularly noticeable, but the difference is substantial, and so to that extent I did account for that. I had no input from the forensic pathology panel on that point. Mr. FITHIAN. That was your own computation? Mr. CANNING.. Yes. Mr. FITHIAN. Let me just see if I can understand one additional thing. Let's take the head shot wound, the length of the distance, I think you had at least one part of the measurement that was 11 centimeters? Mr. CANNING. That is correct. Mr. FITHIAN. If you are dealing with a segment of a line 11 centimeters long, and your estimate is one inch off at one end or the other, and you project that for 150 feet, how far off are you? Mr. CANNING. Eleven centimeters in 1 inch? May I put it, if I were to make it 11 centimeters on 1 centimeter then I don't have to multiply by 2 1/2. Mr. FITHIAN. I don't think in centimeters. Let's start with inches. Mr. CANNING. OK. If we had then an 11-inch baseline for a measurement--- Mr. FITHIAN. You would have something less than that for the head, right? Mr. CANNING. Yes. It is on the order of 5 inches. 196 Mr. FITHIAN. Five inches, OK. Mr. CANNING. Let's take 5 inches. Mr. FITHIAN. A 5-inch line. Mr. CANNING. If we were to miss by 1 inch--- Mr. FITHIAN. If you were to miss one end or the other 1 inch relatively. Mr. CANNING. I can give an approximate answer. This would yield an error in location of the gun equal to one-fifth of the distance between the President's head and the gun. If that distance were 350 feet, the error would be about 70 feet. Mr. FITHIAN. Now let me see if I get this correctly. A 5-inch line with l-inch error at one end or the other-- Mr. CANNING. Yes. Mr. FITHIAN [continuing]. Projected over 150 feet. Mr. CANNING. Oh, 150 feet, I beg your pardon, that would be then 30 feet. Mr. FITHIAN. It would be a 30-foot error. Mr. CANNING. Yes. Mr. FiTHIAN. And therefore the largest error that you allowed in your circles that you say was a 13-feet radius? Mr. CANNING. NO, it was about 23 feet as I recall. I don't have the numbers. Mr. FITHIAN. Twenty-some feet radius. Mr. CANNING. That large circle as I recall is a 23-foot radius. Mr. FITHIAN. Twenty-three feet radius. Mr. CANNING. I think it is. Mr. FITHIAN. I am informed the distance would be about 250 feet; is that correct? Mr. GOLDSMITH. That is correct, Mr. Congressman. At the time of the head shot the distance between the limousine and the book depository building is about 250 feet. At the time of the back neck shot it was approximately 170 feet or 150 feet. You are talking now about--- Mr. FITHIAN. The head shot. Mr. GOLDSMITH. The head shot wound. Mr. FITHIAN. Well, it seems to me, then that your calibrations of the location of the head would have to put the inshot and the outshot wound at considerably less than an inch in error. Mr. GOLDSMITH. That is correct. Mr. FITHIAN. It would have to be less than a third of an inch in error, which seems to me to be highly precise, highly precise. Otherwise if it is 1 inch in error, it gives you a circle with an 80 feet radius or 85 feet or something of that nature. Chairman STOKES. The time of the gentleman has expired. The gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Devine. Mr. DEVINE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Canning, I am extremely impressed with your testimony, the logic, the studies you have made, particularly since you have conducted and supervised research on the flight of trajectory and stability of high speed projectiles or missiles. I would ask one question on your margin of error that you provided on that Texas School Book Depository that is partially covered. 197 One has a yellow circle. One has the red circle. In all of those margins of error that you have demonstrated, the window, the key window, in the Texas Depository is always included, isn't it? Mr. CANNING. Yes. Mr. DEVINE. So you do not exclude that in any of your-- Mr. CANNING. No. Mr. DEVINE. Based on--you are classified of course as an expert in your field as an engineer. And on the trajectory studies, would you say that your studies would reveal that it is consistent that there may have been a single shot that went through the President's neck and through the body of Governor Connally? Mr. CANNING. I am confident that that is in fact the case. Mr. DEVINE. You are positive? Mr. CANNING. Well, positive is a very strong word. Mr. DEVINE. I understand. But it is totally consistent with your studies; is that correct? Mr. CANNING. Yes, it is. Mr. DEVINE. Thank you very much. Chairman STOKES. The time of the gentleman has expired. The gentleman from Tennessee, Mr. Ford. Mr. FORD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want you to know that I am leaning toward the single bullet theory myself. Governor Connally was moving toward the center of the jump seat in the limousine, and the witness before you indicated that he made a sharp right turn of his head, while moving. I was wondering whether or not he would have been moving his body at the same time toward the center. If not, why do you think he would have been moving toward the center and not the door of the limousine? Mr. CANNING. I think that Mr. McCamy was saying that he was moving toward the center of the car perhaps, and that he was rotating his body rather sharply to the right and turning his head even more sharply to the right during that period. That information is consistent with the observations that I have, namely, that in Mr. Betzner's picture the Governor's shoulder is not visible at the time. Mr. FORD. So when he made that right turn of his head, he was moving his body, which carried it to the middle of the jump seat, the center of the car. Mr. CANNING. Toward the center of the car, that is my impression, and it is again an impression, but take it for that, that he did not move his position on the seat but was simply rotating relative to his buttocks, moving off to his left, and rotating to his right, in order to look back around towards the President, but I don't think that he actually moved his position on the seat cushion on which he was sitting. I have no reason to believe that he did. Mr. FORD. You are saying that there was enough speed behind that bullet, to travel 60 feet from the book depository, enter the back of President Kennedy, exit his neck, enter the back of Governor Connally, exit his chest, and cause damage to his wrist, and then lodge somewhere in his thigh. The speed of that bullet would have had that much power or force behind it. 198 Mr. CANNING. I am not an expert in that kind of ballistics. On the other hand, I have heard testimony from others and also read reports which indicate that that, yes, is in fact true. Mr. FORD. No further questions, Mr. Chairman. Chairman STOKES. The time of the gentleman has expired. The gentleman from Connecticut, Mr. McKinney. Mr. McKINNEY. Just one question. You said that it would be fairly easy to do a line of trajectory from 197, frame 197. Wouldn't that be difficult because of the violence of the movement on the part of the Governor between 190 and 197? In other words, wouldn't your single bullet theory and everything else depend on where the Governor was? Mr. CANNING. Yes, it does depend on where he was, and we do not assume that he remained stationary. What we do is that we conclude that he made no large movements away from that general location. We did not find it possible to describe his movements more quantitative than that. I personally am certain that if he had moved enough to avoid the path of the bullet it would have been obvious in the photographs. Mr. McKINNEY. In other words, you have no evidence of such violent movement. Mr. CANNING. He would have had to move practically against his wife in order to have that bullet pass him, and had he done so--if he had avoided the bullet which exited the President's neck, we have a problem of finding where did that bullet go? Mr. McKINNEY. One last question. In your angle or slope of bullet, I have forgotten which exhibit it was, where we show the bullet going through the President and then into the Governor in a drawing, did you positively qualify to make sure that the back of the jump seat wouldn't have gotten in the way of that slope? Mr. CANNING. The back of the jump seat shows in the photographs, and that portion of the Governor is slightly above the back of the jump seat. It was quite close. Mr. McKINNEY. Thank you very much. I have no further questions. Chairman STOKES. The time of the gentleman has expired. The gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Sawyer. Mr. SAWYER. It is just restating a bit or turning around the question of Mr. Devine with the observation that you confirmed made by Mr. Devine. The lower right window on the sixth floor of the depository, speaking of right as you are looking at the building, is the only aperture on the front of that entire building that is within all three margins of error, isn't that correct? Mr. CANNING. That is correct. Mr. SAWYER. Thank you. Chairman STOKES. The time of the gentleman has expired. The gentleman from Connecticut, Mr. Dodd. Mr. DoDD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for letting me come back. Following up on my colleague, Mr. Sawyer's question with regard to the margin of errors in response to Mr. Fithian's questions about assuming that the entry wounds taking the farthest shot first, the 199 head shot, could be off by an inch or a maximum, I guess, by the enhanced photograph, 2 inches, you allowed for a margin of error in the calibrated photograph of 2 inches, was that- Mr. CANNING. I was speaking in terms of degrees. Mr. DODD. Two degrees you said. Mr. CANNING. Yes. Mr. DODD. Could we put up that photograph, the aerial photograph of Dealey Plaza? What I would like to get at here, if I could, and I realize this is going to be very difficult under the circumstances, but if I understood your response to Mr. Fithian's question with regard to the size of the radius that would expand, if you allowed for an additional margin of error in the head wound, could you approach that for me, and I realize this is going to be--maybe in fact the photograph may not be that good for our purposes. What I am trying to get at, I thought we were going to see the face of the School Book Depository and we really don't. I am trying to see if it would expand further across the street, for instance, to that building adjacent to the Texas School Book Depository, or kitty corner to it, to that other building. Is that the kind of margin of error that would be expanded to include some of those additional possible sights, or am I taking it much further than it should go? Mr. CANNING. I think the first part of your hypothetical extension is quite reasonable, because the eastern sector of the error circle extends beyond the corner of the School Book Depository and therefore includes a little bit of the Dal-Tex Building--it would then clearly be the candidate, and there would be an area on the western part of the Dal-Tex Building which would then have to be included. Do you think you would also possibly include that newer looking building? Mr. CANNING. This is the Records Building. Mr. DODD. Does that throw it off too much, laterally? Mr. CANNING. That would really call for a very, very large ellipse, an error circle, to include it. It is conceivable, but I personally don't think that that is at all likely. Mr. DODD. Mr. Chairman, would it be appropriate for me at this time to impose upon our witness, not obviously today, but to ask him if we couldn't get a photograph that would include the Dal-Tex Building, and draw an additional radius line that would allow for a margin of error of 2', in the enhanced photograph? I would just like to see specifically what that would include in that building or other possible sites. Is that appropriate? Mr. CANNING. Two degrees yields roughly a 3-percent error, at a range of 250 feet; this is about 8 feet; another 2('')' would enlarge the ellipse only about 8 feet radially. It is not a major increase. In describing these error circles, I think it is honest to say that I have done my very best to quote the highest accuracy--that is to say, the smallest circles--that I think at all justifiable. The natural conservatism of people who have worked in forensic pathology and ballistics, their natural conservatism, which I do not share, would yield considerably larger ellipses than I have shown. Allowing for 200 larger errors would not change the positions of the ellipses. All it would do is make them larger. Mr. DODD. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman STOKES. The time of the gentleman has expired. Mr. FITHIAN. Mr. Chairman. Chairman STOKEs. Does the gentleman seek recognition? Mr. FITHIAN. I thought I was trying to help you with your diet, Mr. Chairman, keeping you away from lunch. Chairman STOKEs. Mr. Fithian. Mr. FITHIAN. Mr. Canning, were you able to project the path of the bullet or the major fragments of the bullet that struck the President's head, that is, on into where they would be imbedded or wherever they were actually located in the car? Mr. CANNING. I made no attempt to do anything exact along those lines. I noted qualitatively that damage to the windshield of the car appeared to be in reasonable directional alinement but did not appear to be particularly in good slope alinement. But I did no quantitative work in that line. Mr. FITHIAN. And the other part of that similar question is, someone, somewhere along the line before this committee, has made the statement that when the bullet exited the President's throat, it was rising. I am not sure who it was. But I take it from your testimony that you believe the bullet entered the President's back when he was tilted forward 18', or something like that, from the perpendicular? Mr. CANNING. The 18(deg) figure was roughly the maximum that I thought was justified by the photograph of Croft. Mr. FITHIAN. And given that zero to 18(deg) tilt, and the path of the bullet unobstructed by any bone, you have no problem then putting it in Governor Connally's back at the place where it was located? Mr. CANNING. The zero degree or slightly upward that you refer to is in relationship to the body in the autopsy position. But when we start making the adjustments in the autopsy, in the body confirmation, the hunching of the shoulders, the inclination, bringing the chin down, all of those tend to yield a dropping projectile as opposed to one that is traveling horizontal. My estimates of the inclination of his torso, "hunching" if you will, extended from about 11(deg )to 18(deg). What we would call hunching--there is an additional effect resulting from the original observation of wound positions with the President's head "upturned." Mr. FITHIAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman STOKES. The time of the gentleman has expired. Counsel for the committee, Mr. Goldsmith. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Yes, Mr. Chairman. I have a few questions to ask for purposes of clarification. First, may I ask Mrs. Downey to remove the exhibit showing the aerial view? Mr. Canning, a question has arisen concerning the three exhibits that have been studied today that show the direction of the bullet. This is one of those three exhibits. Drawing your attention to this exhibit, the lower right-hand section of it shows the President, and it has a line going from the President outward. Then moving up a bit toward the center of the 201 exhibit, there is the limousine itself and a line going from the limousine to the book depository. What is the relationship between those two lines? Should they be parallel or is the appropriate thing to focus on the relationship between the line from the President in relationship to the limousine? Mr. CANNING. The latter is correct. In order to fit in the largest reasonable illustration in the inset in at least one of the drawings, we allowed ourselves to rotate the position of the limousine relative to the position of the limousine in the street. Mr. GOLDSMITH. So in those three exhibits I take it then there is no need for those two lines to be parallel to each other. Mr. CANNING. That is correct. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Fine. Now one other question about the matter of the margin of error. Drawing your attention to JFK F-122, that shows the three circles or ellipses drawn around different portions of the book depository. When you determined the margin of error specifically now for the head shot trajectory as is depicted there, it is the yellow ellipse, did you take into consideration the possibility that you would have been off in determining the orientation of the President's head by as much as 2deg? Mr. CANNING. That was included in the analysis. Mr. GOLDSMITH. So if that is correct, I take it that that yellow ellipse includes that possibility. Mr. CANNING. That is correct. Mr. GOLDSMITH. And it would not follow then that the ellipse would be moved, for example, to the right. Mr. CANNING. No. If the error were estimated to be larger, it would move the right-hand side of the ellipse and the left-hand side of the ellipse outward relative to the center. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Fine. So in response to the questions that were posed to you by Congressman Dodd, I take it then when you said that the ellipse would move, you were talking about if there were additional error beyond the margin of error that you have estimated. Mr. CANNING. It simply means the ellipse gets bigger. Mr. GOLDSMITH. I understand, but please respond to the question I am addressing to you. Mr. CANNING. I am sorry. Mr. GoLDSMITH. Congressman Dodd asked you whether the ellipse would move to the right, for example, if the orientation of the head was--if your estimation of the orientation of the head was off by 2(deg). I believe your answer was, yes, it would move to the right. My question to you is, when you determined that margin of error to begin with, did you take into consideration the possibility that your estimation of the orientation of the head was off by as much as Mr. CANNING. Yes, I did. Mr. GOLDSMITH. So there would not be a movement then, would there? Mr. CANNING. There would be no movement of the ellipse, that is correct. 202 Mr. GOLDSMITH. The ellipse as I see it would move if your estimation of the margin of error was incorrect. Mr. CANNING. Well, the ellipse--if my estimate--I am not sure I follow you. Mr. GOLDSMITH. In other words, the response to Congressman Dodd, if your estimate of the margin of error was incorrect, was greater than you estimated it to be, then the ellipse would move. Mr. CANNING. The ellipse gets bigger. Mr. GOLDSMITH. Gets bigger. Mr. CANNING. Yes. Mr. GOLDSMITH. And if your estimation of the margin of error is correct, it would stay in exactly the same place. Mr. CANNING. That is correct. Mr. DODD. Would counsel yield on just that one point, since you are following that line of questioning, would you also take into consideration the questions by Mr. Fithian? You relied pretty much on the exact location of the entry wounds as reported by the pathologist. Mr. CANNING. That is correct. Mr. DODD. Did you allow for any margin of error there? Mr. CANNING. There was a small allowance for that. It was a couple of millimeters. That was quite well determined. Mr. DODD. Did counsel want to pursue that same line of questioning with regard to that? Mr. GOLDSMITH. Mr. Canning, I am not attempting to suggest any particular testimony on your part. I am only trying to clarify here. Mr. CANNING. Yes. Mr. GOLDSMITH. That ellipse as it is presently drawn, does that reflect the margin of error as you determined it to be? Mr. CANNING. That is my estimate of the margin of error. Mr. GOLDSMITH. No further questions. Thank you. Mr. FITHIAN. If the gentleman would yield, the reason the small blue circle is so much smaller is primarily because of the additional length of the line between the exit wound of the President and the entrance wound in Connally; is that correct? Mr. CANNING. That is correct. Chairman STOKES. The time of the gentleman has expired. Professor Blakey. Mr. BLAKEY. Mr. Chairman, it may be useful for those who have only tuned in today to recognize that additional evidence will have to be considered in evaluating the possibility raised by Mr. Fithian and Mr. Dodd that the gunshots could have come from another building; that evidence already in the record might include the following: the neutron activation analysis that indicated that the pieces of lead found in the car came from two and only two bullets; the ballistics evidence that indicated that both of those bullets could be traced back to the gun allegedly found in the sixth floor of the depository. Consequently, it ought to be noted that there is no additional evidence in this record that could be correlated with the hypothesis of a shot hitting the President not coming from the depository. Chairman STOKES. Mr. Canning, at the conclusion of the witness' testimony before our committee, that witness is entitled to 5 min- 203 utes under the rules of the House to explain his testimony or make any statement he cares to make relative to his testimony before this committee. I extend to you such time, if you desire it, at this time. Mr. CANNING. Thank you. I would like to make just one point that has occurred to me that may not have been amply clear, and, that is, in the case of the single bullet theory, we established with high reliability and precision, I believe, the rightmost position which Governor Connally could have been sitting in at the time that he was wounded. We did not establish how far to the left he could, with comparable of quantitative certainty. And with that in mind, there may be some small change that might come about in where the error circle for this case would lie if we were able to determine, for instance, that he was several centimeters to the left of where I placed him in that drawing, and what that would do is, that it would move the lefthand margin of the smallest ellipse, of that black ellipse, it would move it somewhat to the left, as we see it. It would move it to the west. But that change is not in my view an important change in the overall result. Chairman STOKES. Thank you very much, Mr. Canning. I certainly want to thank you for the testimony you have given here today, and I think I can say on behalf of the entire committee, you have certainly given some very impressive testimony, and we appreciate your appearance. Thank you very much, and you are excused. Mr. CANNING. Thank you. Chairman STOKES. There are no further witnesses to come before the committee today. Therefore, at this time the Chair would adjourn these hearings until 9 a.m. tomorrow morning. [Whereupon, at 12:40 p.m., the select committee was adjourned, to reconvene at 9 a.m., Wednesday, September 13, 1978.] 204 (blank page) INVESTIGATION OF THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 1978 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SELECT COMMITTEE ON ASSASSINATIONS, Washington, D.C The select committee met, pursuant to adjournment, at 9:15 a.m., in room 345, Cannon House Office Building, Hon. Louis Stokes (chairman of the select committee) presiding. Present: Representatives Stokes, Devine, Preyer, Fauntroy, Thone, Sawyer, Ford, Fithian, and Edgar. Staff present: G. Robert Blakey, chief counsel and staff director; James McDonald, staff counsel, and Elizabeth L. Berning, chief clerk. Chairman STOKES. The quorum being present, the committee will come to order. At the outset of today's hearing, I would like to make a couple of observations. During the course of our hearings, on two occasions we have had individuals who have attempted to disrupt the proceedings, and on those occasions, it has been necessary for the Chair to order those persons to be removed from the room. The Chair would like to make it clear that these are congressional hearings. First, they are to be conducted with a certain amount of dignity, and accordingly the Chair will not tolerate any disruption whatsoever of these hearings. We hope that all individuals observe the practices of the House and not cause this type of action to have to be taken during the course of these hearings. Second, this morning's witness, at the time the witness is brought into the room, I will ask that all individuals remain seated until after the witness has been brought into the room and seated at the witness table, and then again when the witness leaves the room, we will ask that all persons remain in their seats until the witness has been escorted from the room. Mr. Blakey. NARRATION BY G. ROBERT BLAKEY, CHIEF COUNSEL Mr. BLAKEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Marina Prusakova was born on July 17, 1941 in the Russian village of Molotovsk near the White Sea. She was raised, for the most part, by her grandmother. In August 1959, Marina moved to the city of Minsk, and in March 1961, at a dance, she met a young American who called himself Alik. Six weeks later, Marina and Lee Harvey Oswald were (205) 206 married. It is fair, therefore, to presume that in the succeeding years Marina was the closest person to Lee Harvey Oswald. The Oswalds remained in Russia until June 1962, at which time they moved to the United States. They went to Dallas, the home of Lee's mother and a brother. In the spring of 1963, they moved to New Orleans, then back to Dallas in September. After Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested in connection with the assassination of President Kennedy and then shot to death by Jack Ruby, Mrs. Oswald testified a total of four times before the Warren Commission. All of her testimony was in closed session. In 1965, Marina Oswald married Kenneth Porter. In October of 1977, Priscilla Johnson McMillan published her "Marina and Lee," a book in which Marina cooperated so as "to speak, through her more capable words, the things the people should know." There will be four general areas of questioning of Mrs. Porter this morning: First, Russia; second, Dallas from June 1962 through April 1963; third, New Orleans from April 1963 to September 1963; fourth, Dallas from September 1963 to November 1963. It would be appropriate now, Mr. Chairman, to call Mrs. Porter. Chairman STOKES. The committee calls Mrs. Porter. Mrs. Porter, would you please stand and raise your right hand and be sworn? Do you solemnly swear the testimony you will give before this committee is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God? Mrs. PORTER. I do. Chairman STOKES. Thank you. You may be seated. The Chair recognizes counsel for the committee, Mr. James McDonald. Mr. MCDONALD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. For the record, would you please state your full name? TESTIMONY OF MARINA OSWALD PORTER Mrs. PORTER. Marina Nikolaevna Porter. Mr. McDONALD. And were you one time known as Marina Oswald? Mrs. PORTER. Yes, sir. Mr. McDONALD. Mrs. Porter, are you accompanied today by an attorney? Mrs. PORTER. Yes. Mr. McDONALD. And would you please have your attorney identify himself for the record? Mr. HAMILTON. My name is James Hamilton, and I practice law in the District of Columbia. Mr. McDONALD. Thank you. Mrs. Porter, when and where were you born? Mrs. PORTER. I was born in Soviet Union in city of Molotovsk on July 17, 1941. Mr. McDONALD. And with whom did you live during your early childhood years? Mrs. PORTER. With my mother, stepfather, and my grandmother. 207 Mr. McDONALD. Mrs. Porter, could you move the microphone a little closer to you ? Mrs. PORTER. OK. Mr. McDONALD. Thank you. And where were these early years spent, what city? Mrs. PORTER. Archangel. Mr. McDONALD. When did you move to Minsk? Mrs. PORTER. When I was 19 years old, I believe. Mr. McDONALD. And why did you go there? Mrs. PORTER. I went to live with my aunt and uncle in order to work in the city. Mr. McDONALD. And what were their names, your aunt and uncle? Mrs. PORTER. It Was Ilya and Valentina Prusakova. Mr. McDONALD. And your uncle, was he known to you as Uncle Vanya? Mrs. PORTER. No, Uncle Ilya. Mr. McDONALD. And where was he employed? Mrs. PORTER. He was working for MVD in the city of Minsk. Mr. McDONALD. And what is that, the MVD? Mrs. PORTER. It is the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Mr. McDONALD. And what did he do at the MVD? Mrs. PORTER. I do not know what he exactly did, except I know he has a profession as an engineer. Mr. McDONALD. Did he ever discuss his job with you? Mrs. PORTER. No. Mr. McDONALD. Did he ever discuss his job at home? Mrs. PORTER. No. Mr. McDONALD. And he was stationed in Minsk or worked in Minsk? Mrs. PORTER. Yes. Mr. McDONALD. Did you ever study English in the Soviet Union? Mrs. PORTER. Me? No. Mr. McDONALD. You never studied in school? Mrs. PORTER. No. Mr. McDONALD. Mrs. Porter, when did you first meet Lee Harvey Oswald? Mrs. PORTER. I do not recall the exact month, and the day of the month, but it was in 1961. Mr. McDONALD. Do you recall whether it was in March of 1961? Mrs. PORTER. February or March. Mr. McDONALD. And how were you introduced to him? Mrs. PORTER. By some mutual friends, a group of students that I know, I knew. Mr. McDONALD. Can you recall who introduced you? Mrs. PORTER. No. Mr. McDONALD. And where were you when this introduction took place? Mrs. PORTER. It was at the city dance hall in Minsk. Mr. McDONALD. Can you describe for us, as best you can, your recollection of when you did meet him, what you were doing and who brought you together? Mrs. PORTER. Well, I was invited by a friend of mine, a medical student who artended, medical students' dance, ball, and when I 208 came there, it was a group of students, and one of them was Lee, and some mutual friend introduced me to him. Mr. McDONALD. Can you recall who that mutual friend was? Mrs. PORTER. No, I don't. Mr. McDONALD. Can you recall what you talked about at this first meeting? Mrs. PORTER. Just typical young people everyday talk, routine talk, about the weather. I do not really recall what it was about. Mr. McDONALD. Do you recall how long this initial meeting lasted? Mrs. PORTER. About 2 or 3 hours. Mr. McDONALD. In other words, you continued to talk with Lee Oswald for 2 to 3 hours? Mrs. PORTER. No, I didn't. When he asked to dance, we just talked very little. Mr. McDONALD. Did he tell you he was an American? Mrs. PORTER. No, not at that--not during the dancing, no. Mr. McDONALD. At this time you were speaking in Russian together? Mrs. PORTER. Yes. He spoke with accent so I assumed he was maybe from another state, which is customary in Russia. People from other states do speak with accents because they do not speak Russian. They speak different languages. Mr. McDONALD. So when you say another state, you mean another Russian state? Mrs. PORTER. Yes, like Estonia, Lithuania, something like that. Mr. McDONALD. Did you suspect at all that he was an American? Mrs. PORTER. No, not at all. Mr. McDONALD. Did he tell you where he worked? Mrs. PORTER. Not at that moment. Mr. McDONALD. Can you recall the first time when you and Lee Oswald had a discussion when he told you about himself?. In other words, when was the first time you had a discussion with Oswald when he told you where he was from, told you something about himself?. Mrs. PORTER. Well, after the dance, we had been invited for tea or whatever, for a little gathering at somebody's house, one of the friends, and a majority of the group went there, and then I found out that Lee was from America, and of course it was lots of curious people asking questions about his country, and I was one of them. Mr. McDONALD. Did he say why he left the United States? Did he tell you or anyone in your presence? Mrs. PORTER. I do not recall that. Mr. McDONALD. Do you recall asking him why he was in Russia? Mrs. PORTER. I do not remember if I asked him at that particular evening. Mr. McDONALD. Did he tell you where in the United States he was from? Mrs. PORTER. No. Mr. McDONALD. Can you recall when he first expressed any political views to you? Mrs. PORTER. Not really. The politics really weren't discussed in the sense comparing two countries, which one is better. Mr. McDONALD. Did he ever tell you he was a Communist? 209 Mrs. PORTER. No. Mr. McDONALD. Or a Marxist? Mrs. PORTER. No. Mr. McDONALD. Or a Trotskyite? Mrs. PORTER. No. Mr. McDONALD. Before or after you got married, can you recall what political views he was expressing to you then? Mrs. PORTER. Well, the political views never have been emphasized in the relationship at all. Mr. McDONALD. After you got married, and you got married at the end of April in 1962? Mrs. PoRTER. Yes. Mr. McDONALD. Again I will ask you when did he first tell you the reason why he left the United States and came to Russia? Mrs. PORTER. Well, I cannot pinpoint the exact date, but if I recall, way back in one conversation or all together, it came clearly-pardon me, I lost the question. Mr. McDONALD. When do you recall he first told you why he left the United States to come to Russia? Mrs. PORTER. So anyway he said that being young, he just wanted to see--I mean he read something about Soviet Union and he wanted to see for himself what life looked like in Soviet Union. Mr. McDONALD. Do you recall him expressing dissatisfaction with the United States? Mrs. PORTER. No, I do not recall, not at that moment, I mean not at the beginning of the relationship, if he was saying something for or against the United States. Mr. McDONALD. You are saying at the beginning of your relationship you don't recall him saying anything for or against the United States? Mrs. PORTER. No. Mr. McDONALD. When do you recall him first expressing opinions against the United States? Mrs. PORTER. A few months after the marriage when I found out that he is wishing to return to his homeland. Then he started complaining about the bad weather in Russia and how eager he will be to go back. Mr. McDONALD. Can you recall Oswald expressing at this time, soon after your marriage but prior to the return, prior to your return to the United States, do you recall him expressing any views about the United States and its political system, either pro or con, for or against-- Mrs. PORTER. No. Mr. McDONALD [continuing]. And specifically regarding John Kennedy? Mrs. PORTER. What I learned about John Kennedy it was only through Lee practically, and he always spoke very complimentary about the President. He was very happy when John Kennedy was elected. Mr. McDONALD. And you are saying while you were still in the Soviet Union he was very complimentary about John Kennedy? Mrs. PORTER. Yes, it seemed like he was talking about how young and attractive the President of the United States is. 210 Mr. McDONALD. Can you recall during this time when he ever expressed any contrary views about Kennedy? Mrs. PORTER. Never. Mr. McDONALD. Did you ever ask him directly why did you come to the U.S.S.R.? Mrs. PORTER. I probably did. Mr. McDONALD. Can you recall what his answer was? Mrs. PORTER. Well, he said that he was always curious about Soviet Union, and he bought tourist visa. I asked him how did he got in the United States, I mean to Soviet Union, I am sorry. He said that he bought visa or whatever you call it, asked for permit to enter the country through Finland as a tourist, and then he asked to stay. Mr. McDONALD. Did he ever talk about defecting from the United States to the Soviet Union? Mrs. PORTER. What do you mean by that? Mr. McDONALD. Defect, in other words, renouncing or at least ostensibly renouncing the U.S. citizenship to come to the Soviet Union. Mrs. PORTER. Well, during the marriage I found out about that, that he did give up his American citizenship, and was afraid it will be very difficult to come back for that reason, or they would not permit him to come back. Mr. McDONALD. And how did you find out about this? Mrs. PORTER. I do believe that he told me. Mr. McDONALD. Before you married him, were you aware of this defection situation? Mrs. PORTER. I don't remember if I knew that. Oh, you mean before we were married? Mr. McDONALD. Yes. Mrs. PORTER. No. Mr. McDONALD. Did Lee Oswald ever discuss with you the various trips he made to the American Embassy when he was trying to defect? This would have been before you even met. But did he ever tell you about the different times he went to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow? Mrs. PORTER. No, he did not. Mr. McDONALD. What was your first impression of Lee Oswald when you met him? Mrs. PORTER. He was polite, neatly dressed, very courteous, well mannered, and he was quite attractive. Mr. McDONALD. Did you notice whether he was in the company of other individuals, any friends, the night of the dance? Mrs. PORTER. Yes, he was. Mr. McDONALD. In the book "Marina and Lee" by Priscilla Johnson, it says that you first met him, met Lee, on March 17, 1961, and on March 25th, a few days later, you received a call to visit him at the hospital because he was sick. Would you comment on that? Why did you go? You had only met him at a dance. Mrs. PORTER. Well, my aunt took the message, and she said there is somebody with the accent calling and they left a message for you to come over. So, of course, I had sympathy for person being in the hospital, why not pay a visit. It was just a courteous thing to do. 211 Mr. McDONALD. Even though he was only a casual acquaintance at that time? Mrs. PORTER. Yes. I did like him. Mr. McDONALD. Pardon? Mrs. PORTER. I did like him, so---- Mr. McDONALD. And what did you talk about on this occasion in the hospital and in the hall? Mrs. PORTER. Well, what do you talk about in a hospital? Mr. McDONALD. Well, can you recall? Mrs. PORTER. Just asked how you feel, and what has been done for him over there, and if he has plenty of food to eat and what- ever. Mr. McDONALD. You knew him for briefly 6 weeks, and you got married on April 30, 1961. Mrs. PORTER. Yes. Mr. McDONALD. Would you consider that a--well, wasn't that a rather hasty move, hasty decision, after 6 weeks of knowing an individual? Mrs. PORTER. Not when you are age that I was, you don't think it is. Mr. McDONALD. At that time did you know anything about him, about his background? Mrs. PORTER. Not very much, except that he is American. Mr. McDONALD. Did you know whether he had a family in the United States? Mrs. PORTER. I do not recall when I found out that he have brother and mother. Mr. McDONALD. At that time when you married him, did you know whether his mother was alive? Mrs. PORTER. No. Mr. McDONALD. Again referring to the book "Marina and Lee," in that book it is stated that you didn't know that Oswald had been in contact with the American Embassy since February of 1961, 2 months, 2 1/2 months prior to your getting married, when he expressed a desire to return to the United States, starting back in February 1961. Is that true, that you did not have any idea that he had been in touch with the American Embassy? Mrs. PORTER. No, that was the condition of me accepting his proposal, because I asked him before marriage if you ever be able or will come back to United States, and he said no, so I assumed that he will be living in Soviet Union all the time. Mr. McDONALD. At that time what was your attitude toward the United States? Mrs. PORTER. Well, I did not know that much about United States, but I was curious to find out about. I did not have any hostility toward United States. Mr. McDONALD. When was the first time you learned that Oswald wanted to return to the United States? Mrs. PORTER. Some time after we were married, a few months later maybe. Mr. McDONALD. You say a few months? Mrs. PORTER. Yes. Mr. McDONALD. Can you recall how you learned? 212 Mrs. PORTER. No, I don't. Please do not forget, it was so many years ago. Mr. McDONALD. I understand. But can you try to remember? That would be, you are a Russian citizen, and the very first time that you learned that your husband wants to leave and take you to the United States, that would be a significant event. I would assume it might have even been a shocking event to you. Mrs. PORTER. Yes. Mr. McDONALD [continuing]. To think that you might leave your homeland. Mrs. PORTER. Yes, it was. It wasn't very easy decision for me to make. What should I do? Should I follow him or should I stay at home? Mr. McDONALD. But the question was, as best you can recall, how you learned that he, that Oswald, wanted to go back to the United States? Mrs. PORTER. Well, as far as I remember right now, I think he just asked me one day or one evening what would I think if he come back to United States? Would I go with him? Of course I told him wherever he go, I should too, and I will back him up. Mr. McDONALD. And right around the time when you first learned that he wanted to go back to the United States, can you recall whether there was any change in his attitude toward the United States politically? Mrs. PORTER. I do not remember. I don't think it was, because he just wanted to go back home, and that was the main concern of his. Mr. McDONALD. During your time in Russia together, what were Lee Oswald's political views? Mrs. PORTER. To tell you the truth, I do not know, because I do not ever--l wasn't interested in politics. I did not discuss this as a fact. I maybe overheard conversation between him and somebody else, an article in newspaper, what they think about certain events at this time. Mr. McDONALD. Did he discuss politics with you? Mrs. PORTER. Not much, but every time something aroused, like somebody maybe will be unfair, make an unfair statement toward the United States, he will defend United States. Mr. McDONALD. Where did Oswald work? Mrs. PORTER. He worked at the radio factory nearby our apartment. Mr. McDONALD. And what did he do there? Mrs. PORTER. I do believe maybe he was some kind of mechanic. I really don't know what kind of job exactly he did. Mr. McDONALD. Did he ever discuss his job? Mrs. PORTER. Only thing he said that he did not like it very much, it was manual labor. Mr. McDONALD. It was manual labor? Mrs. PORTER. Yes. Mr. McDONALD. Did he come home in the evening with dirty hands, dirty clothes? Mrs. PORTER. The first time he did after he came home he went and took a shower right away, so--not really dirty, no. Mr. McDONALD. On subsequent nights I mean, do you recall whether he would come home--you said he did manual labor. Were 213 his hands rough, dirt under the fingernails and generally did it look like he was doing that kind of work? Mrs. PORTER. Well, not really. Mr. McDONALD. How about his clothes? Did he have a special set of work clothes? Mrs. PORTER. I don't remember. I think he did, but I would not recall exactly. Mr. McDONALD. Who were his friends during this time in Minsk? Mrs. PORTER. Lee did not have very many friends. I do recall one young man working with him. His name was Pavel Golovachev, and he was around our house quite a lot and they spoke English. So for this young gentleman it was a good practice. Mr. McDONALD. Was this individual Pavel Golovachev? Mrs. PORTER. Yes. Mr. McDONALD. Would you consider him Lee's closest friend? Mrs. PORTER. I think so. Mr. McDONALD. When was the first time you met him? Mrs. PORTER. I do not remember if I met him before we were married or shortly after he came by the house. Mr. McDONALD. Did he work with Lee at the radio factory? Mrs. PORTER. I even doubt that--he was invited to the wedding as a friend of Lee. Mr. McDONALD. Do you recall when you first met him? Mrs. PORTER. Pardon me? Mr. McDONALD. When did you first meet him, Pavel Golovachev? Mrs. PORTER. Like I said earlier, I don't remember. Maybe it was when he was invited to the wedding on April 30. Mr. McDONALD. That was the the first time you met him? Mrs. PORTER. I assume by now. Mr. McDONALD. Did you get to know him well? Mrs. PORTER. Fairly well. Mr. McDONALD. Did he come over to your apartment? Mrs. PORTER. Yes, he was a very nice boy. Mr. McDONALD. Do you know where he lived? Did he live in the general vicinity of your apartment? Mrs. PORTER. I don't think so. I think he lived somewhere in town but I don't know where. Not very far away. Mr. McDONALD. Do you know whether Oswald and Mr. Golovachev ever talked about politics together? Mrs. PORTER. I really don't know because they spoke in English. Mr. McDONALD. They spoke in English? Mrs. PORTER. Yes. Mr. McDONALD. And why did they do that? Mrs. PORTER. Because Pavel Golovachev was studying English language and not very many people you can speak the language with, so he said it was a good practice for him being around Lee. Mr. McDONALD. Do you think this was one of the reasons that he befriended Oswald, to perfect his language ability? Mrs. PORTER. It could be, and he was interested about United States I feel sure and talked about, compared the life. Mr. McDONALD. Do you know how they met, how these two individuals met? Mrs. PORTER. No, I don't. 214 Mr. McDONALD. Have you ever heard from this individual since you left Minsk, Mr. Golovachev? Mrs. PORTER. I do believe when we moved back to United States, we did receive some letters from Soviet Union, but I do not remember exactly from whom. That is possible. Mr. McDONALD. Generally what kind of person was he, Mr. Golovachev? Mrs. PORTER. He was quite bright and honest and fun person. Mr. McDONALD. Thank you, Mrs. Porter. Mr. Chairman, I am finished with this line of questioning for this phase. Chairman STOKES. Thank you, Counsel. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from North Carolina, Judge Preyer, for such time as he may consume. Mr. PREYER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mrs. Porter, your English now seems to be very good. Mrs. PORTER. Thank you. Mr. PREYER. But if you have any trouble in understanding me or understanding the question, please ask and I shall try to put it in another form which you can understand better. I would like to continue with a few questions in the period of your early life in Russia with Lee Harvey Oswald. I might say for the record at this time that Mrs. Porter has given several depositions to the committee, and they will be made a part of the final report, and I think that may explain why we will not ask every conceivable question about this period in your life that we might think of. When you first married Lee Harvey Oswald, he had his own apartment. Did you consider that unusual, that a single person in the Soviet Union, who had a menial job, would have his own apartment? Mrs. PORTER. Yes, it is kind of unusual, but foreigners in Soviet Union usually are treated a little bit better than their own citizens. Mr. PREYER. In other words, it would have been unusual for a Soviet citizen in his situation to have a single apartment. Mrs. PORTER. Yes, but he had more privileges as a foreigner. Mr. PREYER. Were the type of privileges he had and the type of apartment he had like those that other foreigners would have had? Mrs. PORTER. I do not know because I cannot compare to other foreigners. Mr. PREYER. Was it the practice that foreigners had better housing accommodations"- Mrs. PORTER. That is what I heard. Mr. PREYER [continuing]. Than Soviet citizens? When you were living in the apartment, did Lee ever have visitors whose identity was unknown to you, that is, did anyone visit you, apart from your normal friends, someone who was a stranger to you? Mrs. PORTER. No. Mr. PREYER. Was Lee secretive during this time? Mrs. PORTER. I think so. For example, he would be writing something on a piece of paper and it will be in English, and if I ask him what it was, he would not talk about. 215 Mr. PREYER. Was he devious? By that I mean, would he say, for example, that he was going one place and you learned later that he had gone to another place? Mrs. PORTER. I do not understand the question what "devious" means. I don't know. Mr. PREYER. Perhaps the word "deceptive." Was he deceptive to you? Did he say to you he would do one thing and you later learned he did another thing? Mrs. PORTER. Not that I know of, not at that particular period of my life. Mr. PREYER. At this period of your life, did he ever act violently in front of you? Mrs. PORTER. No. Mr. PREYER. Did he ever mention to you that he had contact with the KGB, the Soviet intelligence agency? Mrs. PORTER. No. Mr. PREYER. In your deposition, one of the depositions you gave the committee, I believe you stated that you both assumed that the KGB was observing you. What is the basis for that conclusion? Mrs. PORTER. Well, from Russian newspaper you assume that they don't print exactly what is going on in United States, and I mean act like they maybe mistrust them, so it wasn't surprising for them to keep eye on a foreigner. Mr. PREYER. Have you personally ever had any contact with the KGB or the MVD? Mrs. PORTER. I lived in apartment with lots of people. The neighbors were working for the same, how you call it, same not organization, but they worked for MVD. They were different professions, doctors and whatever, and of course I know them as neighbors. Mr. PREYER. But as far as you know, you had no contact with the KGB or the MVD on any sort of official business basis. Mrs. PORTER. Did you say "official"? Would you please repeat your question? Did you say "official"? Mr. PREYER. As I understood your answer, you stated that some of your neighbors may have been connected with the KGB or the MVD. Mrs. PORTER. I know they work for it. Mr. PREYER. Worked for them, but that your contact with them was as neighbors? Mrs. PORTER. Yes, and sometime in my life I had to go over there and talk to the men at MVD when I was applying for a visa to enter, to leave Soviet Union. Mr. PREYER. Did you and Lee think that your apartment was bugged? Mrs. PORTER. Yes, we did. Mr. PREYER. Why did you expect the bug in your apartment? Mrs. PORTER. Well, because like I do not even know if bug will take any electricity, but our electric needle would be running when you turn all electrical appliances off. It would still be moving. So we did not know what the reason for that was, except we assumed we had been watched. Another assumption is that this is quite customary in Soviet Union to keep eye on somebody. 216 Mr. PREYER. So that you say it was quite customary to bug foreigners in this situation. Mrs. PORTER. I am not really making that exact statement. I might have heard gossip about it, and I knew that they do watch foreigners. Mr. PREYER. Did Lee ever tell you why he thought he was allowed to stay in the Soviet Union? Mrs. PORTER. I do not recall if he said why. I do not recall right now. Mr. PREYER. Why did you think he was allowed to stay there, since he was uneducated and was not a scientist or not in that category of foreigners who would normally be welcomed to the Soviet Union? Mrs. PORTER. When I found out later and during the marriage that he give up his American citizenship and asked for--I mean anyone ask Russia for political asylum, so that was