Organization: University of Illinois at Chicago
Date: Thursday, 9 Apr 1992 01:33:07 CDT
From: <U54778@uicvm.uic.edu>
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy.jfk
Subject: Re: Clark Panel
 <7APR199211282580@rigel.tamu.edu>

Mr. Todd frequently states unequivically his faith in all this expert testimony
 and untainted pristine evidence.  Could he please explain to me what the
concept of "chain of evidence" is to him and why this concept is used
profusely in court proceedings?  Please don't duck this question with the
statement that these events are not being held in an actual court trial.
The court is the world and the jury is all of us.  Some level of suspician
must be tagged onto evidence that does not have a clear chain of holding.

To add to this interesting aspect of the case, I present the following which
I found quite by accident while investigating other items:

THE NEW YORK TIMES, MONDAY, JUNE 18, 1979

       CIA SAYS IT DISMISSED OFFICER
       AFTER HOUSE FILES WERE SEARCHED
                 by
            JANET BATTAILE
   Special to the New York Times
WASHINGTON, June 17 ---- A Central Intelligence Agency officer who was
assisting a Congressional committee in the investigation of the 1963
assassination of Pres. Kennedy was dismissed after his fingerprints
were found on sensitive evidence kept in a committee  safe, the CIA
acknowledged today.  An agency spokesman, Herbert Hetu, said the
officer, Regis T. Blahut,was dismissed last summer shortly after
the rifled files were discovered and reported  by the House assassinations
committee.  Mr. Hetu said that the incident was a case of one man's curiosity
and not an instance of CIA spying on a Congressional committee.
"It was just a case of poor judgement," he said.
He said that Mr. Blahut's job was to coordinate agency records that the
committee needed for its investigation into the assassination.  He refused
to elaborate on the reported unauthorized entry into the locked safe,
where the committee kept physical evidence of the assassination, including
autopsy photos, X-rays and the bullet that wounded both the President and
then Governor John B. Connally of Texas.
But a report in Monday's edition of The Washington Post said that Mr.
Blahut's fingerprints were found on the safe, and on the photos
and other evidence inside it.  The Post story said that nothing
 was taken from the files and quoted Mr.Blahut as saying that there
was an innocent explanation, although he refused to say what that was.
He told the paper he had signed an oath of secrecy with the agency
and could not discuss the incident.  The committee's general counsel,
G. Robert Blakey, declined to discuss the matter.  "The incident is
terminated and I see no reason to comment on it," he said.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
              end of news item

Certainly, this could be as innocent as it sounds.  But it raises a lot
of questions in my mind.  And I wonder what this incident would do to
a prosecution's case when confronted with demand for chain of evidence.
And since my mind is diseased to the point that I might question the
motives and actions of our governmental agencies, I wonder what might
be behind an innocuous looking CIA man with his hands on such crucial
evidence.  Was he the only agent with this access?  Could he be looking
at the Lopez report on LHO's Mexico visit that was so damaging to our
National Security that it is buried in the quashed files of the
House Committee.  Even with the stated agenda of Congress to open up
these files, will this one see the light of day?  Remember that Lopez
has stated publicly that it gives evidence that LHO was impersonated.
I would tend to think of this report as the litmus test of whether the
Congress is being forthright or filled with brown shoe shine.

middle sized al.