TELEVISION INTERVIEW WITH PROFESSOR TREVOR-ROPER RE NEWSPAPER ARTICLE CRITIZING WC
Agency: CIA
Originator: CIA
From: WITHHELD
To: CHIEF, WE
Document date: 01/14/1965
Document type: PAPER-TEXTUAL DOCUMENT

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ABSTRACT

MICROFILAI

GUBJECT

Chief of station, London

Television Interview - Professor TREVOR-ROPER

ACTION REQUIRED - REFERENCES

We are enclosing herewith a tape recording

of a BBC 2TV program "Encounter" which was shown on

14 January 1965 at 1930 hours.

This thirty minute

program vas devoted to intervieving Professor

TREVOR-ROPER regarding his Sunday Times article

criticizing the Warren Commission keport on the

assassination of President Kennedy®

The participants

are identified on the tape; the moderatoi, who is

not identified, is Erskine

B. CHILDERS.

2.

A duplicate copy of this tape was given to

the ODENVY repiesentative®

.=.

ACCOM

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19 Jan. 1965

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BBC Television Interview - Professor Trevor-Roper - l4 Januasy 1965

Erskine B. Childers, Moderator: Tonight's encounter is with

Professor Hugh Trevor-Roper, who is the reglus professor of

modern history at Oxford. Last September, the Warren Commission

on the assassination of President Kennedy brought out ita massive

report with over twenty volumes of evidence. It found that

Lee Harvey Oswald, and he alone, killed the President. A month

ago, Professor Trevor-Roper published a sensational article in

the Sunday Times dissenting from these findings. Now to talk

to him are: Anthony Lewis, who covered the Warren Commission

Investigation for the New York Times and is now their London

correspondent, and Louls Bland Cooper, criminologist, wilter on

legal affairs in the Observer, and lecturer at London university.

Professor Trevor-Roper, the killing of President Kennedy was

followed by waves of rumor and speculation about who did it and

whether there was a conspiracy, but the Warren Report seems to have

satisfied virtually everyone. Now I think many people were

astonished that you, as a scholar, have reopened the whole

affair in this way. Why did you do 1t?

Professor Trevor-Roper: I did

It because it didn't satisfy me.

I agree that there was loud public acceptance of the Warren Report

when it was published, and, indeed, some papers stated openly

that by now all doubts were resolved and no problems remained.

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And this was the official reaction. But I must say, I find

that in talking in America to ordinary, educated people, that

scapticism is very wide.

Cooper: Professor, when did you first think that the warren

Commisaion' Report might not be as sound as most of us thought

that it was in its findings that only lee Harvey Oswald was the

killer of President Rennedy?

T-R: When I read the Report.

Cooper, Yes, but at what state, I mean what particular fact

lead you to begin

to suspect its validity?

T-R. Well, I think the first thing that struck my mind when I

read that Report was the problem of the killing of Tippet, which

seened to me handled in a very vague and indeed evasive manner.

Childers: This is the killing of the policeman, very soon after

President Kennedy.

T-R: Yes. The whole chain of reasoning whereby the warren

Report seems to establish that Oswald had killed Tippet and that

Oswald had been Identified, in some way, as the possible

assassin of the President, and that Tippet, we must presume,

had approached him with that suspicion in sis mind. All

this

i !

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= 3.

seemed to me very strange and unconvincing and a positive

difficulty about the timing. How did he do it?

Lewis: Professor Trevor-Roper, that was one point you made in

your article. You said, in essence, you rested your case on

quoting a few central facts which render the wbole Report

suspect, the one you just mentioned is one of then. Then you.

suggested that the police notes, alleged police notes of the

interrogation of Oswald had been destroyed, that the pathologist,

the doctor, had been persuaded to adjust his evidence to the

police view, the pathologist's notes had been destroyed, and

that a bag in which the Commission found Oswald had carried the

gun to his place of employment had been destroyed. Taking those

particular points which you made, perhaps in reverse order, the

point about the paper bag you've now withdrawn. I think you

said you'd eat humble pie on that because you asserted that the

bag had been destroyed when, in fact, it hadn't been destroyed.

Indeed, a picture of it was printed in the Report. It was

referred to frequently, and I must say I wonder how could anyone

doing a scholarly piece of work, which you said you vere doing,

have made such a mistake.

Prof. T-R: Well, we all make mistakes, and I admitted that

mistake. That bag was destroyed as evidence in the sense that

it was discolored beyond recognition by chemical tests to which

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.."

it was subjected, and, therefore, the FBI judged that It was no

longer valid evidence and made another bag and submitted the

other bag

7?

• Now, I made a mistake in reading

the evidence and I was writing under & certain pressure of time

and I noticed that mistake afterwards. I noticed it before it

was pointed out because, as you say, the original bag, discolored

though it was, remained an exhibit, and as soon as that was

brought to my attention, I withdrew. I'm not going to defend

myself on grounds where I think I was wrong. I made a mistake.

Lewis: No, well of course it 18 understandable, anyone can make

a mistake. But it 18 a rather serlous charge, at least I think

1t would ordinarily be considered serious to charge the

authorities in any country with deliberately destroying evidence

and I shouldn't think that one would do that lightly. Say that

lightly.

T-R: I was not making any charges. I was stating what I

belleved to be facts. One of the facts, which I stated, was

erroneous in that particular, and as soon as it was brought to

my attention, I withdrew 1t.

Cooper: Can I take up another point, Professor, with you? And

that's with regard to the pathologist's notes. Now you said,

In your first article in the Sunday Times, that Dr. Hughes, who

was the chief pathologist conducting the autopsy, had burned all

his original notes. Do you stand by that statement today?

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T-R: Burned his original notes?

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Coopar: All his original notes, were your words, Professor.

T-R: All - I think are his words too.

Cooper: No, they're not, Professor, because, in fact, when he

gave evidence, he said all he had done was a first preliminary

draft. Can I perhaps remind you what, in fact, took place was

that DI. Hughes had, in fact, taken his notes at the autopsy,

they were preserved, and they were given to the Commission. All

he had done was, when he had gone home to draft his report, he

did a first draft, no doubt as you would do if you were writing

an article for Sunday Times again, he didn't like it very much

and he threw that in the fire when he had done his second draft

report.

That's what was burned.

T-R: I was guoting his actual affidavit.

Cooper: Well now, even his actual affidavit didn't say that.

T-R: What does it say?

Cooper: The original affidavit sald that the chief pathologist

at the - well, this is In fact what you say, that the..

T-R: No, I want to know what the actual affidavit said.

Cooper: The actual affidavit said that he had burnt his notes

T-R: Just a minute, it doesn't say "he," it says "I."

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Childares Well, gentlemen, can I suggest, really what ve're fr

getting at here is your fundamental question, I think, Professor

Trevor Roper whether there is evidence that lee Harvey Oswald

took gun into the book depository building, behind the

President's car as it was

travelling, and whether he fired it.

The pathologist's evidence concerned whether thare was a bullet

wound in the front of the neck, going into the front or the

back, and so on. Now, do you still claim that there is no

evidence that Oswald took the gun in and fired it?

T-R: There is no valld evidence that Oswald took the gun 1n.

The question of whether he fired it is a different matter and

the evidence is of a slightly different character.

What do you mean by that?

Childers: Tony Lewis.

Lewis: Yes, I would ask the same question. You said there is

no valid evidence. I should just like to run down a bit of the

evidence which the Commission had which seems to me to be entra

ordinarily more detailed than would be produced in the ordinary

criminal trial. I don't know whether you've read many reports

of criminal trials. But just let me run down a few things that

they had.

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T-R: Now what you must run down is the evidence that he brought

the bag containing the gun into the book depository.

Lewis: Yes, but you know the way things work in life, Professor

Trevor Roper, 1f I may say so, is that ordinarily in the case

of murders, you don't have six witnesses standing around watching

the killing.

T-R: No.

Lewis: Circumstantial evidence is necessarily relled on, and

that's what exists in most cases and exists in great detail in

this case. So, 1f you'll forgive me, I'll tell you what I think

Is relevant to the facts. Number 1, the ownership of the gun by

Oswald was established beyond any doubt. The place where he kept

It was established, the fact that it was not there immediately

after the killing was established, and that the shape of the gun

was still shown on the blankets where it had been kept. The fact

that he made a bag, a paper bag, out of materials available at the

place where he

worked was fairly well shown. That he carried

= bag -

ToR: Now, now, may I Interrupt? You are talking about "fairly

well." I believe that in a matter as delicate as this 1t's

Important to know what is certain and what is not certain. Half

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• • 8.

my complaints against the Warren Report is that adverbs like

"fairly," "Probably," "Perhaps," etc, are used to slide over a

great number of difficulties.

Cooper: This is to exclude circumstantial evidence, because

circumstantial evidence can never be certainty, of course.

TR. Yes, but in the absolutely essential links, I think it

1s important to state what is circumstantial evidence and what

is not.

Iewis: Now let me proceed and you can decide whether it is

circumstantial or not.

T-R: May I interrupt you?

Lewis: Yes, sir.

T-R: You are presently on a particular point, that is to say,

the carrying of the gun in. You'll remember that in my article

I never stated that it was, that Oswald did not carry the gun in,

and my case does not rest on any such suggestion. I said he may

have carried it in and he may have fired it. My statement is not

a denial that he carried it in. My statement was to point out

that the evidence that he carried it in 1s not valid, and my

charge against the Report is not on this issue at all, it is that the

procedure of the Commission in building up this Report has been

las throughout.

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Lowin: Perhaps I misunderstood, I thought you were judging, as I

read the pice that you wrote, I thought you were judging the Report

as a report. You made some staten ats that vere quite categorical.

One of which was, as I recall, just to nove on, I haven't gone

on with all the evidence there vas, of persons seeing Oswald

with the gun in his hand, fingerpriats on the gun, on the bag, on

boxes around - pretty complete eviduce by the ordinary standard.

But you made, for example, a categorical statement that the police

must have taken notes of their iterrogation of Oswald.

T-R: Now, what are you asking me about?

Lewis: Well, let me finish my question, perhaps, and that the

notes were destroyed. That's again a rather serious charge. Do

you stand by that charge?

T-R: I stand by my statement that In astonished that in these

circumstances no notes were kept and one explanation, the one

which I accepted was that they vere destroyed. If you tell me

there's another explanation, there's another explanation.

Coopers When you say notes, Professor, do you mean notes taken

actually at the moment when Oswaid was being interrogated, or

notes made subseguent to the interogation?

IR: I mean record of what he said.

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Cooper. Well that's here - that's all in an appendir in the

Report - there are pages of 1t.

T-R. No, but not in any for that oould be used is an

ordinary, at least not in an English court of la.

Cooper: Well, do you think that it's normal police practice

for policemenito actually record notes as the acesed personal

suspect is making his statement?

T-R: If I'm run in for ??

and the police say

to me that anything I say may be used in evidence against me,

he writes down what

I say.

Coopers But, Professor, there are circumstances where the

policeman can merely give oral evidence of what you said to him.

He doesn't need to write it down, does he?

T-R: I should hope that the assassination of the President

of the United States is a case sufficiently important for

careful details.

Cooper: Of course, at that moment they were simp? taking him

in as the killer of Tippet, not as the killer of the President,

weren't they?

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Childers: Mr. Trevor-Roper, can I bring this to a wider level

now, because in a sense you've already said that you were not

suggesting that there was definitely a conspiracy of some kind.

For example, a conspiracy in, shall ve say, destroying notes

that the police, you feel, should have taken, or might have taken.

But you've also criticized the very character of the Warren

Connission itself. You sald, I belleve, that you joined the

Who Killed Kennedy Committee here in Britain originally because

you were convinced that the composition of the Commission and the

procedure which it announced were ill-calculated to produce the

truth or guarantee a full examination of the evidence. Now,

what was it, really, about the Commission that you were unhappy

about?

T-R: Well, the Commission consisted of busy men, mainly

politicians in an election year, and it seemed to me that it was

insufficiently independent of the sources of its material. That

is to say, one sees the Commission as a tribunal before whom the

police or the FBI are making a case, which is essentially a

prosecutor's case. It is essential that the tribunal stands

apart from the police, from the FBI, receives the police and

FBI evidence, is able to look at it quite objectively with the

aid of other evidence such as might be brought by a defense

counsel in an ordinary trial. And it seemed to me that this

was not so. That if one looks at the way the Commission worked,

one finds that it was set up at a time when, on the evidence,

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the PBI had already perfected its case. And, MI. Hoover, the

head of the FBI, being interrogated by the Commission In February,

stated that he had reached his conclusions, they were final,

that anyone who dissented was a lunatic, and he then presented

a mass of material which lead to that conclusion, which did not

Include certain material which we know exists, which, perhaps,

didn't lend to that conclusion. And I think that given the

weakness of the Commisaion, it was very difficult, paychologically,

for them, in a very short time, to break down this pyramid of

prearranged material which lead to a particular conclusion.

They dotted the d's and they crossed the t's and their whole

method of examination (and I read all through the twenty-six

volumes of evidence) their whole method of examination seems to

me lax. They just recorded what people said, the cross-examination

is not the kind of cross examination which would have taken place

In a judicial inguiry.

Childers: Louis Bland Cooper

Cooper: Well, I think most English people, Professor, would

agree with a great deal of what you say, that in fact this

Commission of inguiry didn't conduct it according to standards

that we would think proper. There was also a cut and thrust of

debate, you know, of a defense counsel cross-examining witnesses,

and I think in reading the Report you would have felt this.

But

at the same time, isn't this traditional in America, that the

commissions of inguiry there are not quite conducted on the

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same basis, they are fact-finding.

T-R: Un huh, and what is the result? You get a commission

of Inquiry like the commission of inguiry on Pearl Harbor,

which is now recognized, I think, by historians, to be incorrect.

Childers: Anthony lewis, you actually covered the day-to-dmy

workings of this Commission.

A.I: I just wonder, I'm bound to observe. I wonder how someone,

how you would feel, Professor Trevor-Roper, 11 I made & general

statement, the kind you just made, tarring all royal com isalon

because of sonething one commission did twenty-five yearg ago.

I must say, that was just a bit too much. Now, getting on to

this subject, I would never be an apologist for the methods the

Warren Commission used. I think It made mistakes as to ita

procedure, but your suggestion that it was not sufficiently

independent and too closely tied and committed to an fBI view

seems to me to display an appalling ignorance of the American

system and the

FBI and its relationship with this Commission.

One thing, you said the FBI had already established its case

when the Commission was founded. The Commission was appointed

on November 30, eight days after the assassination, at a time

when nothing had been resolved, no evidence of any significance

was confirmed

T-R: I' Sorry, I should have said in February when the

Commission started its meetings. Started Its work.

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Lewis: secondly, I think it would be very hard, very hard, to

find among the 180 million people in the United States, any

figure who was more independent of the fBI, who was less

popular with the head of the FBI, than the Chief Justice of the

United States, Mr. Earl Warren. I just think that is a, frankly,

an almost laughable a ?proposition? • After the Report came out,

MI. Hoover, who cares more than anything about the FBI, was

highly critical of the report, and of the Commission, of leaked

Information to the press, and the suggestion that they're

working hand in glove is difficult -

I-R: On what point was he critical? le was critical on one

point only, and that was the one point on which the Commission

happened to cast a passing breath of dissent on the FBI.

Cooper: Professor, what relevance is J. Edgar Hoover's evidence

in this? He wasn't at Dallas, he didn't see any of the shooting,

none of his evidence was directed to the facts of the assassination

of President Kennedy. There la simply opinion evidence by J. Edgar

Hoover, I would have thought that this Commission, even supposing

it weren't the best, could have assessed what is factual evidence

and what is opinion evidence. Don't you agree?

T-R: Why then, I might ask, did the Commission summon to give

evidence, Mr. J. Edgar Hoover, whose opinion, you say, is not

worth having?

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Cooper. No, I didn't say his opinion wasn't worth having,

I said it was opinion evidence. It's valuable for what 1t's

worth, but it 1s not factual.

T-Rs. Why didn't they summon the head of the FBI in Dallas?

Cooper: Well, I don't know the answer to that, perhaps you

don't know the answer elther.

T-Rs I don't. I'm not claiming to know anything, I'm merely

clalming that I have no alternative theory about the murder of

Kennedy. I am claiming that the procedure of the Commission does

not lead to the results which are stated in the Report..

Childers: But Professor, when you say that you feel that the

Commission was committed by some choice to take ?largely?

FBI or police sources, do you yourself have specific witnesses

in mind, for example, specific evidence that they didn't hear,

that you feel is absolutely vital?

T-R: Yes, I mentioned one. The head of the FBI in Dallas.

Childers: You feel he knows something, or you know he knows

something?

T-R: Well, I'll make a positive statement. In the search of

the oth floor of the book depository, there was found a bag.

This bag contained some chicken bones, and the head of the FBI,

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local FBI, was quoted by the New York Times, your paper, he

saying, a respectable paper, as saying

Lewiss. Thank you.

TR:

explicitly that the FBI had detected the fingerprints of

Oswald on this bag and that this bag was the lunch of the

assassin. Thereupon, a black man called Bonnie Ray Willlama

appeared and said, as a matter of fact, "That is my lunch bag"

and the fingerprints miraculously disappeared. Now, the

Commission states that the head of the fBI, local FBI, denied having

said this. But why did they not ?fall on? him, to whom did he

deny it? If this raises a legitimate doubt in the mind of the

reader, surely it should be allayed, surely it is the duty of

the Commission to summon this man, Mr. Gordon ?Jankin? and

question him whether he did or did not say that. Perhaps it

was their duty to summon the correspondent of your paper to say

why did he report it thus if it was untrue. Inevitably, an

element of suspicion is left in the mind when a witness of that

nature is not summoned.

Childers: Anthony Lewis.

Lewis: Well, without wanting to criticize my own newspaper, or

American newspapers generally, I will say that many of the things

that were said in Dallas by the newspapers, in the turmoil that

followed that very terrible event, simply don't stand up.

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T-Rs Many of the things in the Warren Report don't stand up

either, but this isn't a reason for not pressing.

Levis: Well, I must say that we've tried to get out what the

things are that don't stand up. It seems to me you haven't

mentioned any yet, Professor Trevor-Roper, what doesn't stand

up? For example, the paper bag, the notes of the pathologist.

Let me take one other specific 1f I may. You made the statement,

again, a rather serious one ...

Childers: Just & second...I'm sorry, let Professor Trevor

Roper answer that.

Lewis: Yes, certainly.

T-R. Let me take the case of the murder of Tippet. This seems

to me a very important episode which is involved in deepest

mystery and yet is passed over by the Commission as if it had

been established with perfect clarity. The position is that,

according to the Cormission, Iippet accosted Oswald and, after

some conversation, Oswald shot Tippet. And this episode is

essential because, whatever its cause, it lead to the arrest

of Oswald. Now, on what evidence, I ask, and I think any

reasonable person may ask, on what evidence did Tippet think

that Oswald was a suitable person to accost as a suspect of the

assassination, for that is what we are ???

Now, all that the Commission can state is that a very general

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description was sent out saying that the suspect is believed

to be a white man, aged about 30, about 5'10" in height, and

about 160 pounds in weight. Now that is so vague a description

that 1t applies to a very great number of people in Dallas and

yet, Oswald was the only person, as far as we know, who actually

fell under suspicion. Furthermore, this description, vague though

1t Is, for the purposes of a particular arrest, 1s remarkable

precise in relation to what may have been seen by a man standing

on the ground six floors below through a window. And yet, the

only piece of evidence which has been given which can relate

the shooting to the advice sent out to the police, and among them

to Tippet, 18 a statement by & man called Brennen who saw, said

he say, Oswald from the ground floor.

Childers: Louis Bland Cooper.

Cooper: Professor, is that really quite fair? You see, after

all, Tippet is dead and we don't know how Tippet reacted, either

to the messages that came over the radio, or to the sight of

Oswald. He may have had the faintest suspicion that Oswald

might have been the man that they were looking for. We don't

know what happened.

T-R: Now, you're talking about "may" and "might."

Cooper: Oh well this 1s, I mean, the Commission 1s in the same

position as we are now.

T-R: No, no, no, they were in a much better position than we

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are. They needn't have talked about "may" and "might," there

were several witnesses to the Tippet episode who have not been

called.

Cooper: Nobody knows what made Iippet react. This we don't

know. Never can know.

T-R. If the Commission had taken the trouble to call other

witnesses who were avallable, It may be that they would have

discovered.

?: Why should they rely on the car, Professor, it couldn't

have been seen.

T-R: He was sitting in the car, according to one witness who

has contradicted herself again and again and who is the only

witness on whom the Commission has chosen to rely when there

are other witnesses avallable.

?well, I think that (garbled - all talking together)

T-R: This 19 much too important a point to zush aside.

?No, I'm not pushing it aside.

Lewis: Wouldn't you say it is just not true they didn't rely

on that witness. They quoted half a dozen witnesses to the

affair between Oswald and Tippet, and as Lauis says, there'll

never be any certainty about what was in Tippet's mind because

he's dead.

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I-R. There'll never be any certainty about what was in his

mind but there are other people who were witnesses to episodes

in that sequence of events who have not been summoned.

Childers: Mr. Roper, can I take it beyond this detail which

obviously we can't resolve here. You also challenged, in fact

you said above all there is the question of lee Harvey Oswald's

motive.

Why should he have done this? what did you really mean

by that?

T-R. I mean that the Commission, having come to the conclusion

that Oswald, and Oswald alone, without external motivation, shot

the President, and being therefore unable to provide a rational

explanation of why he did it, has appealed to a psychological

explanation. The Commission has said, "We must look for the

sources of Oswald's action in Oswald'a psychological case history."

Very well, let us accept that basis. Now if Oswald was aither,

on the one hand, a perverted idealist, of, on the other hand, a

mere exhibitionist, and shot the President for one of those

reasons, or both, the psychological reaction when he was arrested

would be to boast of it. As an Idealist he would say, "I did the

act of justice." As an exhibitionist, he would say, "It was I

who did it."

Cooper:

??

I read this report and one

of the things that struck me immensely was here was a man who was

at odds with his wife, they'd been separated, he goes home the

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night before, he tries to strike up a conversation with her, she

wIll have nothing to do with him and he goes off the next morning,

he goes to the garage, picke up this rifle, and he says, "I will

show her that I an a man' and goes out to do the brave not. Now

Isn't this psychologically acceptable theory?

Childers: Anthony Lewis.

T-R. But then he doesn't show it because when he arrested he says.

"I didn't do it, I don"t know what you're talking about. "

Cooper: This 1s a gane-the man who wants to go on trial and

wants to be able to brave it out and fight the authorities and

collect all the publicity.•

T-R. In that case, he miscalculated, but on your own reasoning,

18 he did it in order to draw attention to himself, he singularly

failed to draw attention to himself.

Cooper: No, he didn't.

Childers: Anthony Lewis, a very brief word from you on oswald.

Lewis: Well, I was really going to turn a little bit to say that,

Professor Trevor-Roper, you said at the end of your article that

you thought the acceptance of the Report was emotional not rational.

Some might feel that your article was the same. I wonder whether

you really are not basing your whole approach on a premise that

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- to to -

American society is sick, that there's something wrong with 1t,

suggestions that you made.

T-R: I do not belleve that American society is sick, I regard 1t

as a perfectly rational society, I don't know why you should

say this. I regard the Report as a document which does not

stand up on the evidence which is avallable in those twenty-six

volumes.

Childers: Well finally, Professor, after all this controversy,

and what we've just been saying, I think, are you going to

continue to challenge the Warren Report?

I-Rs I'm not going to go on repeating myself. I shall go on,

naturally. I shall watch 1t. As a matter of fact, even aince

I published my article, an American lawyer, a lawyer actually

employed by the Warren Commission, has published an article in

the American Bar Association Journal stating that on the

evidence produced by the Warren Commission, no court of law could

find Oswald guilty.

Childers: You're going to continue then what you hope to see -

new witnesses brought forward?

T-R: I shall continue to observe what happens, I think that

witnesses' memories will fade, a great deal of testimony is lost,

witnesses' memories are even m ore deceptive than politician's

memoirs, and, on the other hand, there may be further revelations.

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I think that we haven't heard the last and that the suggestion that

the Warren Commission resolves all doubts and leaves no problems,

I think, is totally untrue.

Childers: You feel then, for example, that there are still....

let...

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