FROM: Duke Lane, 76004,2356 TO: Anthony Marsh [J], 72127,2301 DATE: 11/20/94 1:35 AM Re: JFK Bill in Dallas (et al) DALLAS, Nov. 18 (UPI) -- An author and investigator of the Kennedy Assassination urged a federal panel Friday to ensure that all government documents related to the crime are opened to the public. Jim Marrs was one of many witnesses who testified before the JFK Assassination Records Review Board created two years ago to review all sealed government records regarding the assassination 31 years ago in Dallas. "There has yet to be a truthful and full investigation of this case, so I hope you see how extremely vital it is to release all records pertaining to Oswald, even things so minute as his school records," he said. Marrs told the six-member panel that they are not investigators but they have the responsiblity to guarantee the American public that any relevant document is opened for inspection when they completed their work in three years. Marrs, who authored "Crossfire" and teaches a course on the JFK conspiracy theories, said many private citizens who do not accept the conclusion of the Warren Commission are still investigating. "They deserve full disclosure from their own government," he said. The Warren Commission concluded in its investigation that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone assassin of Kennedy, but numerous other theories have flourished since the assassination. The Oliver Stone movie, JFK, rekindled interest in the conspiracy theories and was behind the creation of the records review board along with some new books that came out before the 30th anniversary of the slaying. John Tunheim, the panel chairman and a deputy attorney general in Minnesota, said the members want to compile "a complete record" of the case. "We are very interested in creating a complete record so that the argument will not be when we're done that the government is still hiding records from the American people," he said. Tunheim said so far "the most signficiant surprise" has been the volume of records that exist. "We have alot of records that the review board will have to look at. Far more than I thought there would be," he said. Copyright 1994 The United Press International Copyright 1994 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in this news report may not be republished or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. BALTIMORE (AP) -- Descendants of presidential assassin John Wilkes Booth want to dig up the body buried in his grave to determine whether authorities got the right man in 1865. Two researchers and 22 descendants of the man who killed Abraham Lincoln filed a court petition Monday seeking to exhume the body from the family plot in Baltimore's Greenmount Cemetery. Researchers Nathaniel Orlowek and Arthur Ben Chitty have suggested that Booth might have escaped capture following Lincoln's killing and that federal troops mistakenly killed an innocent man. If the court grants the petition, forensic experts will test to determine age, sex, race, stature and the presence of any skeletal injuries. Booth was believed to have broken his leg after leaping from the presidential box onto the stage at Ford's Theater after shooting the president in the back of the head. No court date to consider the petition was immediately set. WASHINGTON (Reuter) - Historians Monday began a legal bid to dig up the grave of John Wilkes Booth to test a theory that someone else was buried in it and that he got away with assassinating Abraham Lincoln. A petition backed by 22 of Lincoln's descendants was filed with the Baltimore Circuit Court seeking permission to exhume the body from an unmarked section of the Booth family grave in the historic Green Mount Cemetery in Baltimore, Maryland. The petition suggests the body buried there was not that of Booth, who shot Lincoln at Washington's Ford Theater in 1865, and that troops hunting him may have trapped and killed an innocent man at a Virginia farm 12 days after the shooting. "This historical project is intended to prove or disprove long-standing theories on Booth's escape," said Mark Zaid, a Washington attorney acting for the descendants and historians who filed the petition. He said that should the judge approve of the exhumation, the remains in the grave would be examined by forensic scientists from the Smithsonian Institution's Museum of Natural History, the National Museum of Health and Medicine and other experts. "Tests will be conducted to determine age, race, sex, stature, body build and the presence of any skeletal injuries known to have been suffered by Booth," Zaid said. He said the identification of Booth at the time was questionable and that family members subsequently alleged that he escaped. The experts would in particular look for evidence of the broken leg suffered by Booth after he shot Lincoln in the president's balcony box and jumped onto the stage of the theater before escaping. Zaid said he hoped for a decision by the judge in a few months, and would like to conduct the exhumation by next spring. REUTER Copyright 1994 Reuters America Inc. All rights reserved. Copyright 1994 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in this news report may not be republished or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. By MARTHA SLUD Associated Press Writer RICHMOND, Va. (AP) -- Plenty of White House kids learned it before Chelsea Clinton, or even Amy Carter: Growing up in the Washington fishbowl isn't easy. It's especially tough when your father is commander in chief during the Civil War and your mother is busy holding seances. That's what life was like for William and Thomas Lincoln, the first presidential children to grow up in the White House. "Tad," a Family Channel movie starring Kris Kristofferson and Jane Curtin, just finished filming in Richmond and Petersburg. It delves into the assassinated president's personal side, beyond the log cabin and the stovepipe hat. "I find it fascinating to see Abe Lincoln as a father as well as a chief executive," director Rob Thompson said. The four Lincoln sons were: Edward, who died in 1850 at age 3; Robert, who was 17 and a Harvard University student when his father was elected president in 1860; and Tad and Willie, 7 and 10, respectively, when Abraham Lincoln and family left Illinois for Washington. "(They) were kind of hicks in the White House," Thompson said. Hicks, perhaps, but they managed to have some fun. There was the time Tad and Willie took to the roof of the White House to take aim at make-believe rebels encamped across the Potomac. And there was Tad's wild ride in a goat-pulled cart through one of Mary Todd Lincoln's tea parties. Stories of their mischief went down in White House history, but neither Lincoln nor his wife recorded much about their boys, said Tom Schwartz, curator of the Lincoln collection at the Illinois Historical Library. In one story Schwartz tells, the boys interrupt a Cabinet meeting to get the president to sign a pardon for one of their dolls. "Tad," scheduled to be broadcast in February, explores the darker side of the family's life as well. In February 1862, a fever -- possibly typhoid from a foul White House water supply -- made both boys seriously ill. Willie died two weeks later and Mrs. Lincoln began losing her grip on sanity. She was duped by spiritualists she invited to the White House to hold seances for Willie and Edward, and she couldn't seem to stop buying clothes and White House furnishings. Until she did some research, Ms. Curtin knew little about Mrs. Lincoln. "I knew she was short, fat and crazy," she said in a telephone interview. After reading up on her character, Ms. Curtin came to agree with research calling Mrs. Lincoln a highly educated, politically astute woman who displayed all the signs of manic depression. After Willie died, Mrs. Lincoln smothered Tad with attention, Schwartz said. Just nine years later, in 1871, Tad himself died. He was 18. Lincoln buried himself in his work after Willie's death, Schwartz said, though the night of April 14, 1865, he and his wife sought distraction in a performance of "Our American Cousin" at Ford's Theater. WASHINGTON, Sept. 29 (UPI) -- The FBI transferred an additional 64,218 pages of documents on President John F. Kennedy to the National Archives and Records Administration Thursday, it was announced. Some of the documents relate to investigations in recent years about the Kennedy assassination, including a 1992 search "for three so-called 'tramps' arrested by the Dallas Police Department on the day of the assassination and who have been of some interest to researchers over the years," the FBI said. Kennedy was killed in 1963, and the Warren Commission found Lee Harvey Oswald to be the lone assassin. But conspiracy theorists who continue to investigate the assassination have offered different scenarios over the years. The documents also included references to "core subjects," such as Oswald and his killer Jack Ruby, that were housed in areas other than the bureau's main files on the assassination. Most of the documents consisted of cards from special files maintained by the FBI's Dallas Division, the bureau said. Thursday's transfer is part of a continuing operation mandated by the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Act of 1992, and the FBI so far has spent about $4.5 million transferring nearly 600,000 pages of documents in compliance with the act. An FBI spokesman said the National Archives eventually will make the newly released documents available to the public. (Written by Michael Kirkland in Washington) Copyright 1994 The United Press International