FAST AND LOOSE WITH THE WITNESSES

Using Testimony Known to Be False

In a debate with David Scheim on National Public Radio, Gerald Posner admitted including in his book, Case Closed, an interview with Dallas entertainment writer Tony Zoppi, an interview which Posner knew contained false information.

1. Tony Zoppi told the HSCA in 1978 that he talked with Jack Ruby at the Dallas Morning News building on Friday morning, not long before the assassination of President Kennedy.

2. HSCA later learned that this information was probably false. Confronted with this, Zoppi admitted his account was a fabrication.

3. Nonetheless, Posner included the Zoppi statements in his book.

4. When Scheim confronted Posner with this during their radio debate, Posner admitted that he knew the information was false, but that had included it because it was dealing with a crucial issue.

5. In fact, Posner used the Zoppi statements in a effort to show that Jack Ruby was calm and was not in the emotional state one would expect of one who was involved in any assassination plot against the President. This was, of course, central to Posner's thesis that Ruby became involved only after the assassination--and then only out of emotional turmoil.

"Phantom" Witnesses

1. Posner appeared before the Conyers Subcommittee on Government Operations in fall of 1993. At that time, he stated that he had spoken with Drs Humes and Boswell, who had performed President Kennedy's autopsy, and that these two men now agreed that they had erred in parts of their autopsy report, notably in locating an entry wound in the back of Kennedy's head 4 inches too low. Posner told the Congressional committee that Humes and Boswell thus now agreed with the depiction of the wounds seen in the autopsy photographs and X-rays.

2. Dr. Gary Aguilar spoke with Dr. Boswell on March 30, 1994. At that time, Dr. Boswell denied ever having spoken to Gerald Posner.

3. On pages 324-325 of Case Closed, Posner put forth his theory that a first shot from Oswald in the TSBD window nicked the branch of an oak tree, separating lead core from copper jacket,with the core striking a pavement of Main Street and producing fragments which nicked spectator James Tague in the face. Posner includes three citations from interviews with Tague. In these, Tague is reported as having told Posner that he does not know which shot produced the fragments which nicked him--hence Posner's hypothesis is possible.

4. What Posner does not cite in Tague's 1964 Warren Commission testimony. There, Tague says that he thinks that it was the second or third shot which struck him, although he is not sure. Far more important (and totally ignored by Posner) is Tague's statement under oath that he thought the shots came from the grassy knoll and not from the TSBD!

5. Dr. Aguilar talked with James Tague in late April, 1994. Tague denied that he ever spoke with Gerald Posner. (Recall that there are 3 citations based on an alleged interview with Tague in Case Closed.)

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