FOIA on Martin Luther King

Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.

# ssassination Tapes

NUEO FROM PAGE 47

Id. a successful criminal lawyer and rector of the Committee, in a modern ce building a few blocks from the White use. Fensterwald is a small, dapper man a thin beard. Smith is a lean, intense ain smoker. Both men appeared to be their forties.

Before we begin." I said. "I think I should mention that I used to work for the CIA." I have run across it often, the theory that CIA killed Kennedy. It seems absurge me, and I don't believe it. I worked there three years and never saw or heard anying suggesting the Agency was involved the assassination. I never met anyone are I thought capable of doing it. Still, have learned through bitter experience of suspicion which attaches to former intelligence officers. Epidemics of paranoia did to accompany us through life. I thought better get that issue out of the way.

Smith and Fensterwald exchanged nces and smiled. Fensterwald told me it they did not necessarily believe the CIA sassin theory, and they certainly didn't and talking to a former Agency employee. Relieved, I began to outline my project asked if they had heard of the PSE. Both in were dimly aware of it. I described a device and started to detail the way it could be used as a research tool. They immediately understood what I was proposing were tremendously enthusiastic. Yes, say said, there were many key statements tape somewhere, and they would be glad compile specific references for me. Furthermore, they could. in some cases, divide me with the tape. They said they could be in contact when they had some ng for me.

While I was waiting, I experimented with PSE. I telephoned a friend and told him out the device. I asked if he was willing play a little game to test it out, and he reed. He picked a number between one d ten. I asked him. "Is the number one?" the number two?" and so on. and he swered no each time. I recorded his sponses, ran them through the PSE and lled him back. The number he picked, old him, was five.

He was dumbfounded. He had not heard the PSE and had thought I might be concting some elaborate joke at his expense it when I called back and correctly iden ed the number he had picked, he realized as serious. And he was shocked.

I played the same game several times th others and did not always have similar access. With Bernard Fensterwald, I was able only to narrow the answer down to two mbers, one of which turned out to be correct. With others I have been completely unable to identify the right number. The problem with this game is that the player knows that it is just that. He knows that I know he is lying, it is a socially acceptable situation and there is nothing at stake. The stress which accompanies real deception is not always present.

I contained a tape recording from CBS News of a portion of a Sixty Minutes program in which Mike Wallace interviewed Clifford Irving. The interview took place during the height of the controversy, while Irving was still claiming to have gotten Howard Hughes' life story through a series of interviews with the billionaire. It was a consummate job of lying, embellished with such convincing details as Irving's disagreement with his colleague Susskind about whether Hughes kept his organic prunes in a paper or a plastic bag. Sixty Minutes re-ran the segment after Irving's confession because the man's sheer virtuosity as a prevaricator was amazing. I was interested in the interview for a different reason: at the height of the controversy, Irving had been given a polygraph examination and had passed it. I wanted to see if the man who had beaten the conventional lie detector could also beat the PSE.

I selected a point in the interview at which Mike Wallace suggested that Irving had not interviewed Howard Hughes, but had happened on some transcripts of Hughes' statements. Irving asked how he could have happened on them. Wallace rejoined. "Where did you happen on those transcripts?" Irving replied, "I got the transcripts from Howard Hughes." I charted this statement on the PSE.

It was a perfect example of total stress horizontally blocked, with the smooth, "trimmed-hedge" wave form. Clifford Irving was a master liar, and he had beaten the polygraph, but he would have been caught by the PSE.

A few days after our first meeting, I received a call from Bob Smith. He had turned up a few things for me. I visited him at the Committee's office in downtown Washington. He gave me a tape recording and a typewritten transcript. The recording was the Louis Lomax television program of Sunday, October 16, 1966. Wesley Liebler, a member of the Warren Commission's staff, was the guest. The transcript was of a CBS News television program entitled The Warren Report, which had been broadcast in four one-hour segments on June 25, 26, 27 and 28.1967.

I examined the transcript. The programs had been narrated by Walter Cronkite and other CBS newsmen. They reviewed every major point of controversy that had been raised by the critics of the Warren Report, interviewing eyewitnesses. Dallas policemen, medical examiners, ballistic specialists and many others who had some inside knowledge of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. For what I had in mind, it was a gold mine. I telephoned CBS and learned that I could get a copy of the program's

soundtrack if I would pay for the dubbing charges. I told them to go ahead.

Next I played the Lomax-Liebler tape. Apparently Mark Lane had been on an earlier Lomax program, and now Liebler was on to rebut him. I didn't need the PSE to know that Liebler was stressed. He seemed very agitated, and his breathing audibly indicated his tension. He was angry about the things Lane had said, the questions Lomax was asking him, and the reaction of the studio audience. Given his highly emotional state, he did not seem a very promising subject for the PSE. Nonetheless, I decided to give it a try.

Charting a tape with the PSE is a long and tedious process, and it was impractical to chart the entire program. I ran some of Liebler's statements which were not in dispute and discovered, as I had expected. a great deal of stress. He was pretty charged up.

Most of the exchange between Liebler. Lomax and the audience was argumentative and did not deal with specific factual points. I found two key statements by Liebler, though, and I charted them.

The first statement, in response to a question by Lomax, was, "I have no doubt about the conclusions of the [Warren] Report." Plenty of stress was evident, but not much more than in other statements.

The second statement related to those Warren Commission documents which were not included in the Report—they were locked up in the National Archives. Lomax asked Liebler if there was anything In the documents which would alter Liebler's opinion. Taken literally, it was a strange question, since Liebler had seen the documents and, if they would alter his opinion, they would already have done so. Lomax probably meant to ask if the documents would conflict with the conclusions of the Warren Report. Whatever Liebler thought the question meant, he answered quickly. "Oh, none, none at all." The PSE showed much more stress here than during any of Liebler's other statements.

It was all pretty confused and fuzzy, and it didn't tell me more than I'd already known: Wesley Liebler was pretty upset when he appeared on the Louis Lomax program. I hoped that the CBS tapes would yield more enlightening results.

I finally received a call from CBS's Washington office saying the tapes had arrived. I broke a few traffic laws getting there to pick up the tapes and returning to my apartment. I had already selected the points I wanted to check from the transcript of the program. I mounted the first tape on the recorder. ran it down to the first point of interest. and turned on the PSE.

For the next three days and nights, I ran charts. When I finished, I had a splitting headache, my kitchen floor was ankle deep in chart paper, but I had a much clearer idea of what did and did not happen that day in Dallas.

Before I describe my results. I feel that I must offer the reader a few comments and