"HEARING BEFORE THE SELECT COMMITTEE ON ASSASSINATIONS; HOUSE OF REP..
Originator: HSCA
Document date: 03/17/1977
Document type: PAPER-TEXTUAL DOCUMENT

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JFK Assassination System

Identification Form

Agency Information

Date:

10/7/201

AGENCY: HSCA

RECORD NUMBER: 180-10117-10011

RECORD SERIES: NUMBERED FILES

AGENCY FILE NUMBER: 014637

Document Information

ORIGINATOR: HSCA

FROM:

TO:

TITLE: "HEARING BEFORE THE SELECT COMMITTEE ON ASSASSINATIONS; HOUSE OF REP..

DATE: 03/17/1977

PAGES:

120

SUBJECTS:

HSCA; ADMINISTRATION; STAFF

HSCA; METHODOLOGY

SPRAGUE, RICHARD A.

LEADS AND INFORMATION

HSCA; WITNESSES

DOCUMENT TYPE: TRANSCRIPT

CLASSIFICATION: Unclassified

RESTRICTIONS: Open in Full

CURRENT STATUS:

Redact

DATE OF LAST REVIEW:

08/16/1993

OPENING CRITERIA:

COMMENTS: MLK material, pp. 90-100, 112-119, withdrawn. Box 266.

v9.1

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INAL

ble Transcript 01

HEARINGS

Before The

ON ASSASSINATIONS

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

EXE

SSION

Wathlagton, D. C.

March 17, 1977

Aldersan Reporting Company, Ins.

Officent Reposters

300 Severitti St W. Washington D. Gi

554-2345

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EXECUTIVE SESSION

PHORSDAY, MARCH 17, 1977

U. 5. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SELECT COMMITTEE ON ASSASSINATIONS

Washington, D.C.

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The Cormittee met, pursuant to notice at 10

a,m. In

Room 2220 Rayburn House Office Building, the Honorable Louis

Stokes (Chairman of the Committee), presiding.

Present. Representatives Stokes (Presiding) Faintroy,

Burke, Dodd, Ford, Fithian, Edgar, Devine, Anderson,

Preyes, and Thone.

+i255860%

Also present. Richard A. Sprague, Chief Counsel and

Staff Director, Bob Tannenbaum, Bob Lehner, Steve Fallis;

Al Lewis, Pat Orr, James Wolf, Rebecca Martin, Iom Howorth,;

Burt Chadak, Bob Morrison, Frank Kelly; Polly Brown, Hank Spring

The Chairman. The meeting will come to order,

We are still in executive session. Supposedly, only

Staff are in the room.

Mr. Lehner.

That is true.

The Chairman. There are sevetal matters I thought we

might take up this morning. We may have to adjust the

schedule a bit, because Nr. Fithlan 1s in a markup situation

and has some matters that he wants to bring before the

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Committee. I told him that we would try to adjust to his

?

schedule, whenever he can get over.

One of the things that we have to do is to prepare

our report. for March 31 for the House. In that' conjunction,

we have never done anything really with respect to the

ordering of the hearings printed, of at least the 'open

sessions that we have had.

I guess fronthe beginnihg there has never been any

order to the Court Reporters to prepare anything so we

are really behind in äll of that.

steven, is that your area?

Mx. Fallis. I will take care of it, if you want.

The Chairman. I think definitely we have to have

our hearings printed. Then it is up to the Committee

also to decide if any of the matters related to Executive

session hearings are to be released publicly also.

Mr. Devine. MI. Chairman, how far back are you refer -

ring--just since you became Chairman or prior to that

time?

The Chairman. I am really open for a discussion on

that, Mr. Devine. I donot know how much of what it is, I

try to think back of what we did under our previous

Chairman, whether there was anything much to be--

Mr. Devine. I think it was preliminary discussion rela-

tive to adoption of rules which was finalized since you

have been chairman.

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The Chairman. Right.

Mr. Devine. So, I am not sure that any useful purpose

would be served in having those printed up because the

final rules of what we adopt are used for legislation of

the legislative report,

Do you know, John?

Mr. Anderson. NO, I do ot think it would be useful.

It would be just additional expenses to go ahead and

transcribe and print hearings that were inconsequential as

to what they produce. So, I think I would be agreeable to

implementation of what you say, since you started your tenure

as Chairman. That would be adequate.

The Chairman. All right. Then are there any matters

you can think of related to sessions that we have had in

Executive Session that we ought to release. I suppose that.

matters in relation to Mr. Sprague's explanations yesterday

perhaps ought to be printed up, or we can have some dis-

cussio. as to whether this should be.

Mr. Edgar. Mr. Chairman, is it proper and possible

to have two records made, one from the public sessions

since you have been Chairman, and one from the Executive

sessions that would be held until we have a careful review

of thos?

The Chairman. You mean to have it printed up, Executive

Session printed up, for our purposes.

Mr. Edgar. Yes.

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MI. Devine. I might say, those have a way of getting

out.

The Chairman. Yes.

Mr. Devine. And if they are printed up, of course,

the Government Printing Office has them. Do you know how

many copies are run off?

Mr. Edgar. I do not know what the Security provisions

are.

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Mr. Devine. I would imagine we could have them

transcribed by the Reporter and retained in the custody of

the Chairman until such time we feel that Information can

be released publicly.

Mr Edgar. I think we should have at least, have it

typed up and put together by the recorder.

The Chairman. Well, I would entertain a motion

that we do that.

Mr. Devine. Mr. Chairman, I would like to have the

thoughts of counsel on whether he feels that the information

he gave in Executive Session is of such a nature that it

should or should not be revealed publiclyaat:this:time.

Mr Sprague. Mr. Devine, there äre two things I

would say. Each of the hearings in fact whether public

or in executive session have been transcribed and

are being transcribed, and we have the transcribed testi-

mony in our office.

So that which is from the Executive

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Sessions is kept under lock and key, the others are there

and available. Both are available, so that everything is

being transcribed when you talk about printing, I think

you are talking about the taking of the transcribed notes and

arranging for the Printing Office' to print them up.

Mr. Devine. As part of Committee hearings and part

of the Comnittee report are two different things. The

different hearings there is no conclusion but the

Committee report contains them.

Mr. Sprague. I do not see from the hearings the

public hearings accept from the printing of rules which we

have gotten printed up and which will be distributed, what

else iis to be printed from that.

The Executive Sessions, and I am happy for the notes

from the hearing yesterday that we had, I am happy for

that to be available to whomsoever this Committee wants to

have that available to. I do not think it is a matter

just for general dissemination, unless the Committee wants

to just have it published in the news media from here

to there.

It seems to me this was available more for the Committee

purposes should questions then arise but I have no

feelings one way or theother about it.

Mr.Devine. Mr. Chairman, I think from the standpoint

of MI. Sprague, that he is entitled to be vindicated

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at some time in the future on the charges having been made

by our previous Chairman but I am afraid if those are printed

up and made available to the public, that that is what will

hit the headlines,again it reopens the wounds and I do not

think that we are prepared to meet that at this particular

time.

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I think after we are reconstituted, assuming that hap-

pens, why them that is adequate time for the answers to

be given to the charges made actually unless you feel

some useful purpose would be served in trying to do it

to the confrontation we are going to have with the House

one of these days under the Rules Committee.

The Chairman. Well, actually, I agree with you. I

was concerned because Mr. Mckinney had warned us to have

this done in Executive Session and a couple of other members

had too,

so thatatheyecould then be sent to the other

members or some of the other members and someone even

mentioned putting it into the Congressional Record.

I think, putting it in the Congressional record even

has the same, very same situation about it in terms of

the news media grabbing that and getting back off where we

now have them.

Mr. Edgar.. Mi. Chairman.

The Chairman • Mx. Edgar.

Mr. Edgar. If they are trasncribed and typed out which

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I assume they will be in another 24 hours or so, couldn't

they be circulated to all the members of our Committee and

then at some point in the future some sections of them may

be necessary to share with others in case there is a

question around reconstitution time, but as for now, we

would just keep them within the confines of this Committee.

I think they ought to be circulated to those members

who were not present, who have some questions, who may want to

take a look at the data that was provided yesterday by

Mr. Sprague.

MI. Sprague. My thought is that a copy of them should

be available to be with each member of this Committee for

whatever purpose that member may then want to use it

because it was really so that if questions exist in your

minds or if people are asking you questions,: at: least

you have the information as I state it to be to respond and

I am happy to have, for each of you, to have a copy of !:

that for your own purposes.

The Chairman. Does that satisfy everyone then.

Mr. Devine. That is fine with me.

The Chairman. Then, Mr. Sprague, in regard to the

hearings so that we have a clear understanding on that,

ordinarily when a committee goes to the floor with any type

of report accompanying, that report of course there are

the printed hearings that have been conducted by that

Committee, that is what I had in mind in terms of at

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at least my assumption of the chair, that we would have all

that printed up as hearings of the Committee, with the

exclusion of course of anything that is in Executive Session

unless we thought there was something in the Executive

Session that

should be released at that time.

Apparently there is nothing that anyone can think of.

Mr. Devine. I have not thought much about what we

have done in Executive Session, is there anything that anyone

feels should be brought out?'i

Mr. Edgar. Well, I think that whatever is sent to the

House Floor has to be on the issues of the two assassinations

problems and I think yesterday's record of the pleading of

the 5th is an important thing to have available and at an

appropriate time when we send over a report to have the

public record of that hdaring make some sense.. I do not

know what the choreography of that is when that takes place.

There may be two or three other public hearings that we may

have next week. I do not know what the plans

are, that

may be included in that. Of course, with pleading the 5th

you do not have many pages of testimony but whatever we

can share with the House publicly to justify our existence,

I think' is important to get beyond the March 30 deadline.

The Chairman. Yes, I think that is very important.

All right, we will then see--because none of the members

have even had a chance to correct any of the transcribed

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testimony : before it does go to the printer, so that has

to be done Also. So, if you will proceed to have that

done, I would appreciate it.

Mr. Sprague.

Yes, sir, Mi. Chairman.

Mr. Edgar. Mr. Chairman, do we need any action

on Mr. Preyer's proposed budget?

The Chairman.

Yes.

I talked to him regarding that this morning. He had

a markup in another Committee, also, said he would be

here as soon as he could get here but I had hoped that we

would be able. to go ahead and take final action on that.

Mr. Ford. Do we have any preliminary work at this

point on the budget?

The Chairman. No, Mr. Ford, I think it is a matter of

his report in Executive Session prior to any release of

it in a public session.

Mr. Edgar. Here is a copy (handing).

Mr. Ford. I did not have a copy.

The Chairman. It is still in Executive Session and

not to be released publicly because we have not yet sat

with Mr. Thompson.

I talked to Mr. Preyer this morning about sitting

with him on it as we did with MI. Dent in getting his

concurrence in it, and the procedure that we adopted was

that we will not release any information to the public

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until such time as we have had the consent of both chairmen

from the House Administration.

I want to lay before the intenttee two letters that

we received from Mr. Kenneth Bruton, JI. which I think

should be brought to the attention of the Committee along

with the reply that has been prepared by Mr. Sprague.

May we have the Clerk read this correspondence.

Ms. Martin. "The Honorable Louis Stokes, Chairman,

House Select Committee on Assassinations, U.S. House of

Representatives, Washington, D.C. Letter dated March 8.

"Dear Mr. Chairman.

"I submit herewith my resignation from the Staff of

the House Select Committee on Assassinations effect this

date or at such time hereafter:as the members of the Select

Committee shall determine as fair and equitable.. I resign

as a matter of province and not out of the belief that

the investigation should not be continued by some appropriate

body. The attention of the Select Committee is directed

to the fact that on or about January 11, 1977, while

acting in his capacity as Chief Counsel and Staff Director,

Richard A. Sprague represented to the Staff during the

course of the Staff meeting that, if certain Staff members

were to accept a 35 percent reduction in pay, that

he, Sprague, would see that such staff members were

reimbursed the full amount of the decrease in pay.

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"In justifiable reliance upon the representations of

your agent, I tend to render professional services to the

Houae Select Committee which accepted such services. I

understand that there is an admission of Mr. Sprague's

representation in the record of the Committee proceedings

for Monday, March 6, 1977.

"I bring this matter to your attenion so the

Committee, while a duly constituted legal body, may take

approprite action to restore the pay reductions for

January and February of 1977.

"Of course if the matter can be resolved equitably

then litigation may be avoided. Also enclosed herewith

are copies of telephone bills which I incurred. while per-

forming official duties as acting Staff Director and

Chief Counsel under the former Staff Henry P. Gonzales. I

trust this voucher will be issued: promptly sô I'will be

reimbursed for my actual expenses. I shall look forward to

hearing from you as to the matter of the restoration of

the January and February, 1977 reduction in my pay so that

I may take appropriate action. I appreciate having had

an opportunity to serve on the Staff of the Select Committee.

"With kind regards, I am Kenneth E. Bruton, Jr."

"Enclosed telephone bills for official: calls."

Mr. Ford. What are they--what is the amount?

Mr. Howorth. About. $40.00.

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Ma. Martine second Letter dated March 10.

12

"The Honorable Louis Stokes, Chairman, House Select

Committee on Assassinations, U.S. House of Representatives,

Washington, D.C.

"Dear Mr. Chairman.

"Enclosed herewith is a copy of a letter which was

mailed to my former law firm in Gainesville, Florida, on

Monday, March 7 1977 and which was received on Wednesday,

March 9, 1977, at 2 o'clock p.m.

"On Tuesday, March 8, 1977- immediately following

the acceptance by the House of Representatives of Chairman.

Gonzales' resignation, I mailed you my formal resignation

from the Staff of the Select Committee, a copy of which is.

also encrosed.

"On Sunday, March 6, 1977, having completed my final

reports to former Chairman Gonzales, I moved all of my pos-

sessions from my partment and flew to Florida.

"A number of people in Washington knew I was leaving

Washington and resigning from the Connittee.. I was not

going to tender my formal resignation until such time as

the House accepted the resignation of Mr. Gonzales, for to

do so would leave. Mr. Gonzales without counsel. Since I had

decided to resign immediately upon the acceptance by

the House of the regisnation of MI. Gonzales, I saw no

reason to stay in Washington where the Committee was to

hold a meeting as my presence at that point would simply

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provoke unnecessary confrontation.

"On Wednesday, March 9, 1977, at 12:15 p.m. I learned

from Congressman Gonzales' office that the Select Committee

held a special meeting on Tuesday, March 8, 1977, for the

sole purpose of firing me, notwithstanding the fact that

my resignation was already in the mail to you and that the

letter which I received on March 9 directed me to report

to the Committee offices that same day. It is implicit

in Mr. Lewis' :letter that since I was not in the Staff

offices since February 9, 1977, that I was not performing

duties for the Select Committee.

"Enclosed for your informationis a copy of a telegram

which I received from former Chairman Gonzales on February 11)

1977. As you are no doubt aware, both at the request of

former Chairman Gonzales as well as Congressman Richardson

Preyer, Congressman Walter Fauntroy and Congressman Christo-

fer Dodd, I did not go to the Committee Staff Offices so as

.:.

to not cause unecessary confrontations. However, I

enclose herewith copies of correspondence between myself

and Richard Sprague and Majority Leader Wright relating to

my continuing efforts to resolve some of the problems con-

fronting the Select Committee.

"I bring this chronology to your attention as well

as the copies of documents which I Have enclosed because I

can only construe the calling of a special meeting to "fire"

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me as a vindictive act on the part of MI. Sprague who

could have determined from a number of sources that I

had already returned to Florida and intended to submit

a formal written resignation as I, in fact, did.

"Accordingly, I will appreciate it if you will advise

me as to the following: (a) whether a meeting of the

Select Committee was held on Tuesday March & 1977 and if so,

was that meeting held in compliance with the rules of the

House and the rules of the Select Committee and what

official action was taken?

"(b) The position of the Connittee as to whether my

resignation is accepted or whether I-was "fired" and the

effective date of the acceptance of my resignation or my

"firing". I shall look forward to hearing from you. You

may feel free to call me at my home in Florida 940-372-8021

should you wish to discuss this matter personally.

"With kindest regards, I am sincernly

"Kenneth E. Bruton! JI."

The Chairman. O.K.

Is there any discussion regarding those letters or

any comments that the members have?

Mr. Ford.

Was he fired, Mr. Chairman, or his

resignation accepted?

The Chairman. AT a meeting that was called as I recall

the same day that I was appointed Chairman, we met in my

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office. It was brought to my attention at that time e

to the Committee's attention at that time by Mr. Sprague

that both Mr. Bruton and a lady whose name I do rot now recall

had not worked since the llth day of February, I believe,

and for that reason we were asked to terminate their services

And the Committee at that time took a course of action

and we sent our correspondence out: that day notifying both

persons as I recall it that their services were terminated.

Mr. Ford. I mean, did we accept the letter of resig-

nation?

The Chairman. That hadnot at that time come in.

I think there is a date on that letter.

Mr. Ford. I was at that meeting that day, Mr. Chairman

I do not recall that, probably--maybe I left.- dut of the

office but I do not recall our taking up any business

on whether we should relieve him, fire him or accept his

resignation.

Mr. Dodd. Oh, yes we took that.:

The Chairman. Yes, Mr. Sprague brought it to our

attention and we took action formally.

Mr. Devine. Mr. Chairman, I think one glaring error

in the allegations is the fact that a meeting was called

for the sole and specific purpose of firing him. That

was not the purpose of the meeting being called, it was

our first organizational meeting which, after your having

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been named chairman, we took up a number of things and that

was actually incidental if I recall.

The Chairman. One of the items on the agenda,

yes.

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MI. Devine. Yes.

Mr. Anderson. What about his charge that he was promised

35 percent pay cut; that it would be restored?

Mr. Sprague. Mr. Chairman, we prepared for the

;Chairman, Mr. Stokes' response to the first letter.

This is

the first I have heard of the second letter.

With regard to that statement, as I belleve I said

at the session that we had previously; there was not a

promise that a pay cut in fact would be restored.

What I said to the Staff, at the initial Staff meeting

and what I also said to this committee shen I was asked

the question about it by Mrs. Burke, was that what I advised

the STaff was that I would use my best efforts to see that

those that were on the Staff when we would get our new budget.

would then have the amount of money that had been taken out

of their pay, put back in for an interim period until they

were made whole again. There was never an assurance that

they would get that, and secondly part of what was the

condition was that they still be on the STaff when we

were recreated and had our new budget.

And that is stated in the proposed response by the

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Chairman.

MI. Devine. Is that your proposed response?

The Chairman. Now, we have a proposed response to

the first letter. •

The second letter has just come in a few days ago into

my office. Mr. Sprague has not seen that yet. The Clerk

can read this proposed reply to the first letter.

Ms. Martin. Letter dated March 16 1977.

"Mr. Kenneth E. Bruton, Jr.,

"3301 Northwest 27th Terrace,

"Gainesville, Florida, 32605."

"Dear Mr. Bruton.

"I am in receipt of your letter of March 8; 1977,

submitting your resignation from the Staff of the Select

Committee on Assassinations and your request for reimburse-

ment for certain phone calls and restoration of the pay

reductions you agree to for. January and February of 1977.

"Your "resignation' of course, was obviated by the

action of the Select Committee on March 8,1977 terminating

your employment with the Committee's staff. The Committee

will reimburse you for any phone calls made in pursuit of

Committee business. Before any vouchers are processed,

it will be necessary for you to submit to me the names of

persons you called and a brief statement of the subject

matter of each call for which you desire reimbursement.

"In our view, however, you have no valid claim for

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réstoration of your voluntary pay reduction for January and

February of11977.

"Sincerely, Louis Stokes, Chairman. "

The Chairman. Approximately how much money are we

talking about in terms of this claim?

Mr. Howarth. About $2300.

The Chairman. About $2300.

MI. Howorth. Through March 8.

The Chairman. Are there any questions or comments?

Mr. Sprague. Mr. Chairman, may I also bring to your

attention that other people have left our staff voluntarily

and as to them as well, they have been advised that anybody

leaving the Staff prior to recreation and the getting of

a new budget, if we get that, does not get any of that pay

differential back.

So the people leaving know that that same rule applies

to them as well.

So, I want the Committee to be aware that there is

nothing being done aimed at MI. Bruton that is any different

than anybody else.

The Chairman. Mr. Dodd.

MI. Dodd. Mr. Chairman, just in response, I apologize

for arriving late. The March 10 letter addressed to you

from Mr. Bruton in which he lays out the chronology of

events and so forth following his activities, I would like

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the record to reflect that when he points out at the bottom

of the first page of his letter as you are aware and. Con-

gressmen Preyer and Fauntroy and myself, the reason he

didn't go to the Committee office was not to avoid unnec-

essary confrontations, that was a request that was made by

myself and Congressman Preyer and Fauntroy, over the weekend

which Mr. Sprague was notified that his services were no

longer needed by Mr. Gonzales, it was our opinion that

particular time given the heat of the situation, it was

probably advisable to stay away from the office for a

period of time in order to prevent the exacerbation that

could occur with his presence there. It was not inferred

that he should stay away forever. I think it-was made clear

two of three times within the first day of two of the

following week.

Mr. Ford.. What date are we talking about?

Mr. Dodd. The dates of that, what was that, Thursday,

the date of that Thursday that we received that.

Mr. Sprague.. I think it was about on the l0th.

Mr. Dodd. 10th or llth of February:

Mr. Howorth. l0th of rebruary.

Mr. Dodd. That was on a Thursday and then the Con-

gressional recess over that weekend the following Monday

Mr. Bruton came back to Washington but remained in his

apartment rather than go down to the offices but it was

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never our intention at least certainly not mine that he

should remain away from the offices indefinitely, it was

just during that heated period I just wanted the record to

reflect that. That allegation.

The Chairman. Right. I think that is good to have

in the record.

MI. Ford. Mr. Chairman.

The Chairman. Mr. Ford.

Mr. Ford. I am wondering whether or not-she was

under the impression that he was working for the Chairman

Gonzales at that time--whether or not he had that impression,

that he was to work out of his house or work out of

Mr. Gonzales' office or what-have-you, whether of not we

should reconsider our action maybe and accept his resigna-

tion. I am not concerned about the 30 or 35 percent reduc-

tion he received or whether he should be compensated for

that any more than we compensate others who resigned

voluntarily; that we have to come back and do the same

thing but if we are talking about March 8, the letter of

March 8 and we are thinking in terms of this man is gone

now from the Staff; why couldn't we just accept his

resignation because we

all know that we had some problems

with the, you know, the Staff in this Conmittee, with

the Chairman of this Committee at least and certain staff

people.

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I just do not think that we ought to penalize a

person and discharge him from the Staff when at the

same time hehas shown a good-faith indication of his

intent there to resign, why don't we just accept it and

call him and pay him the $40 forhis phone bills if he can

justify them and get it over with?

The Chairman.

Any comments?

Mr. Sprague. Mr. Chairman, it does not make any

difference to me, as long as he is not here.

Mr. Ford. Well, that is a known fact now, though.

The Chairman. Well, we did send a letter to him in

which we said "you are terminated as of thi date." I suppose

in order to give consideration to what you are--

Mr. Ford. You see, we can address this letter, Mr.

Chairman, we could address it to him March 8, we met on

March 8, is that correct, in your office?

The Chairman. I think it was the 8th, wasn't it?

Mr. Sprague.:'"I do not know.

Mr.Ford. And can we just address it to his letter

addressed March 8, and the Committee would accept his resig-

mation.

Mr. Sprague.

Mr. Chairman.

The Chairman.

MI. Sprague.

MI. Sprague. May i suggest that maybe a response to

him might be that after reviewing that claim that

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he is making, it is the opinion of the Committee that he

does not have a valid claim in terms of the salary,

but in the interest of trying to be accommodating, that if

he will, let us say, sign a release as to all such claims, the

Committee might perhaps be willing to reconsider the action

of the dismissal and accept the resignation as of that date,

couched in language that would be appropriate.

Mr. Devine. It would have to be carefully worded because

we do not want to hold it up like a bribe.

Mr Sprague. That is correct.

Mr. Devine. We want the record to reflect a resignation

rather than firing in order that you drop your claim.

Mr. Edgar. I think that perhaps legal language sounds

appropriate but I think as a matter of fact it would' be

looked upon by him as another act of aggression on our

part toward him and I think that what Mr. Ford is suggesting

is that we just resolve the matter as quietly as possible,

• ..

and in fact he was fired on the same day he wrote the letter

of resignation, I think, or very chose to that, and it was

a matter of that

letter being in the mail and I think,

just a brief note to him saying, we are now in receipt

of your letter of

resignation and in receipt of your

second letter, we feel that your compensation is not

justified, 35 percent claim, but we do, however, feel that

we can at this time accept your resignation as opposed to

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an action of dismissal on our part.

Mr. Sprague. Can I suggest, Mr. Chairman, that some-

thing along that line would be fine, but instead of making

it definitie at this moment, you allow us an opportunity to

check with the House what is the effect of notice of

dismissal and the papers having been processed through and

then the desire to handle it on this basis: I would not

want to put this Committee in any position of certain action

having been taken.

Mr. Doda. Mr. Chairman, I was going to make that

suggestion as well. I do not know if there is any legal

distinction to be made between a firing and resignation in

•terms of putting us in a compromising situation.. I would

suggest that we submit it to counsel for determination.

Mr. Sprague: There is no reason we cannot have it by

Monday •

Mr. Ford. Mr. Chairman, we are talking about action

on Monday. Now March 8 was the termination date, I guess

it was sent to the Clerk's office, right?

We are just saying now the Committee is taking

action since we received the letter of resignation,

we will accept the resignation.

Mr. Edgar.

It is still a dismissal.

Mr: Ford. It is still a dismissal but just saying,

for his record that we will accept his resignation.

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Mr. Dodd. I fully agree with you. I just wantto

make sure that we did take a formal vote in that meeting

to fire him, that was a formal action by the Committee.

just do not know if we can rescind that, accepting a letter

of resignation if we do that, what are the terms of any

resignation any potential legal action--

I would just like to make sure, now;?that we are

covered, we are not doing something in this case that

will complicate the thing.

The Chairman. Mr. Fithian.

• Mr. Fithian. Mr. Chairman, would a motion be helpful

to move-that, contingent upon the proper administrative clear-

ance from the House Administration Committee, that the

Committee could move to rescind its action of dismissal?

The Chairman. I think that would be a proper motion.

Did you hear the motion before?

Mr. Ford. Yes, I did. Wait a minute. No, repeat it

again.

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Mr. Fithian. I was just suggesting that we might

move

to, contingent upon the approval and administrative

clearance af the House Administration Conmittee, that we move

to rescind the Committee's vote of dismissal.

Mr. Edgar. I second that motion.

The Chairman.

O.K. so it has been moved and seconded

that, contingent upon this further clarification, that

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this Committee moves to rescind its previous action regard-

ing Mr. Bruton.

Ready for the question?

All those

in favor, say "aye."

Chorus of "ayes."

The Chairman.

Opposed "No."

(No response.)

The Chairhan. The motion is carried unanimously and

so ordered. Follow through on that.

There are several other matters we have to take up.

We have one problem, the House goes in session at 11, and in

the event that we are going to be in session, once

the House goes into the 5-minute rule, we will have to lve

the permssion from the House, which means I will have

to go over and make that request.

Mr. Ford. We do not want to get called on that, you

know, people might object to the assassinations Committee meet-

ing.

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Mx. Devine. Can we conclude what we will have to do?

The Chairman. So what we will do is just get started

and I can go over and get that at 11.

•Mr. Ford. Before we continue on, Mi. Chairman, can

I ask a question about what time are we going to meet

Monday or have you set: a meeting 'for Monday?

The Chairman. I do not believe we have set one, have

we?

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Mx. Sprague. Well, under the rules, we list it for

every Monday and Tuesday.

The Chairman. Every Monday, Tuesday and Thursday at

10 a.m.

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Mr. Ford. Will there be a meeting called for Monday?

The Chairman. Well, it would depend upon, I think, some

of the things that come out here today as to whether or not

there is going to be a necessity for one on Monday.

So, you know, I cannot say at this time.

Mr Sprague. Mi. Chairman.

The Chairman. Mr. Sprague.

Mr. Sprague. The thing that I wou ll urge you as soon

as there is a feeling that the Budget matters can be reported

out properly, that we do that as quickly as possible so

that we can get moving, and the new resolution which I hope

you

could take up today, that perhaps then being reported

out at a public session, so that then that could start

moving its way through the appropriate Committees of the House.

The Chairman. Hopefully, I was hoping that we might

in terns' öf the Budget, be able to encompass it in some

type of a hearing where it is not the sole item.

I do not think that we dught to let the media to

just focus in on budget that day but would rather see it

sandwiched in with something else so that, among other

matters taken up that day is not just the budget. If we

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give them just the budget, they will go wild on that.

But the next item I wanted us to get into was the

mattercof the resolution and where we are on that.

Mr. Edgar. Mr. Chairman.

ThenChairman. I will get to you in just a minute.

We have already taken up the matter of the prepared

record of hearings and so forth before you arrived.

Mr. Edgar.

Mr. Edgar. Mr. Chairman, let me just speak for

a moment about the Budget

request and the preliminary budget

request that is here. It seems to me that we ought not to

be too worried about having a meeting that solely would

focus on the budget because it seems to me the budget is

one issue of perhaps three major issues that is in contention

in the"House. It might be helpful if, in fact, on Monday

or Tuesday of next week a public meeting were held at

which time the staff would review the program to date .

of the two investigations, looking into DI. King and Mr.

Kennedy's death. And the proposed direction of

those investigations over the new few months and that, as part

of that agenda of specific perhaps skeleton outline of

the two investigations and bringing everybody up to date,

we might suggest that one of the issues that must be

considered for the reconstitution is the issue of the

bueget. At that pointm Mr. Preyer could be recognized to

present the budget process and we could go through it

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item by item and indicate through a dialog our pleasure

at the fact that the budget is not as high as it was

suggested publicly in December and although we feel that

this is not as adequate maybe for the two investigations,

we think it will get us through the next year, fiscal

year. We could look at perhaps the language of the resolu-

tion. And then maybe at the end of that meeting focus in

on some element of either the Kennedy or the King assassina-

tion that could be held at a public setting. I think

what you would get from that is press similar to the press

we got yesterday, that the Committee is serious, that

it is about its process, it is not simply hung up on

internal problems, but in fact it is looking to its recon-

stitution.

Not just to reconstitute it for the sake of recon-

stitution, but in light of the Committee's work todate on

the investigations. And perhaps at that public meeting,

Mr. Tannenbaum and Mr. Lehner could outline, just in a skele-

tal way, the things that are possible to make public and

not revealing anything that we feel is sensitive at this

point. but I think, if we do not cloak it in that kind

of a direction, we are going to run the risk of you know,

saying we are reducing the budget for the sake of reducing

the budget which I think would be wrong, or we.are "you

know, trying to slip something past. I think the public is

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very interested in both investigations.

And I think -i:thecmedia is intetested ih that and

we could have that four-part agenda, skeleton review of

where we are on the Kennedy and King Assassinations,

response to that, the resolution for reconstitution,

connected with the discussion of the budget and finally

some specific focus on some specific piece of evidence

or form that is now being pursued to try to clarify it,

perhaps around our pursuit of that yesterday and around

some other matter.

Mr. Dodd. Would the gentleman yield.

MI. Edgar. Icyield.

Mr. Dodd. I think it is a good proposal and; the

only caveat I would express: would have to do with the

Budget proposal in addition to our own caveat and that is

to make sure we do not reveal things that would, in any way,

jeopardize the investigation I, feel that our first purpose

in this process of reconstitution has to be with.

the leadership of the House.

I include in that number the rules Committee, with which

I am deeply concerned incterms of the closeness of the vote

if we do not have the kind of support I think we are

going to have to have among the leadership itself and

rather than going public with even a discussion of that

budget prior to our opportunity or an opportunity todiscuss

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that with the leadership to make sure that we have no prob-

lems with them.

I would hope that we might defer that discussion.a.

say and I would hope we could arrange a meeting, Mr. Chairman,

with leadership and I can say firsthand, that the Rules

Committee is very much interested in having an executive

session with this committee or the leadership of this

Committee to discuss that item and others.

Mr: Edgar. Suppose that were to occur on Monday or

Tuesday and the meeting I

am suggesting would occur on

Weandsday?

Mr. Dodd. Fine, that is perfect.

Mr. Edgar. At least, give you the choreography of hav-

ing briefed the leadership having presented to the Rules

Committee and having presented publicly before our Committee

that public information getting to the press and

perhaps your "Dear Colleague" letter arriving on Thursday

of next week out to every member of the Congress indicating

what the new budget is and urging support for reconstitution

cosigned by as many members of our Select Comnittee as

possible.

Mr. Dodd. I agree with that, I think. I want

to be sure of our leadership and I want to be sure

no problems with them and having them made public and perhaps

have concerns with them and get into that adversary

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relationship.

The Chairman. Mr. Fithian.

MI. Fithian. I only have one concern. I agree with

the thrust of what is going on. I am not sure, Mr. Edgar,

that that sort meeting is all going to fit into one session.

It depends if we can get the skeleton of where we are

down to 15 or 20 minutes or 30 minutes at the outside for

each investigation, it is still going to squeeze us to get

it in and have any rational discussion of the needs of the

investigation to go beyond that skeleton of where we are

now and the budget support that woüld be required to fulfill

those needs.

We may well get into more than a day, perhaps not.

Mr. Edgar. Will the gentleman yield.

Mr .

Fithian. Be glad to.

Mr. Edgar. I think it could be done in a two-hour

sitting. I think if we locked ourselves in from 10 to

12 next Wednesday, we could spend the first 45 minutes

getting briefs in public on the investigations todate

by the two chief investigators of each of the things, and

perhaps a suggestion of some of the things we want to

bring forward.

There are those that we may want to bring in in

the future. I know there are some other things that are

beginning to boil that perhaps could be shared and then

at a quarter of ll indicate that you know in order for

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this investigation to pursue, we need to move to its recon-

stitution, that is only a week after we have our public

meeting. The language of that reconstitution could be shared

and as part of that would be the budget requests.

Mr. Preyer could be recognized by ten minutes to 11,

five minutes to 11, indicating the task group's report on

the budget in light of the investigative needs that have just

been revealed that get the focus on the investigation

needs and leads and then on the budget.

Discuss that until 11:30 and then the final

half hour of the public session focusing in on one

caveat or one element that we think is important and appro-

priate, at that time to release..

That gets us to 12 o'clock noon.

MI. Fithian. In other words, answering the question

what is the next immediate step in the investigation process?

Mr. Edgar. I think part of our problem as a

committee has been the choreography of, you know, how we are

received publicly and I think if we have that agenda

clearly in mind and know what we are going to do and the

microphones are all working and move into a meeting

and we look over and we look like we are moving, I think

we are moving on some key leads and. we have our two

top investigators share a very carefully-drawn comment

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on the King and Kennedy Assassinations, that I think will

set the stage, followed up immediately by a "Dear Colleague"

letter that would go to every Congressman indicating what

our resolution and budget request will be and urging their

support. Wednesday night's public media would announce our

information, you know, then we can talk about, after that,

what: else needs to be done along the lines of our

Whip count and others to have the Committee reconstituted.

Mr. Fithian. Mr. Chairman.

The Chairman. Mr. Fithian.

Mr. Fithian. What is your plan with the leadership

for going to the rules Committee and going to the Floor?

Have

we selected-

The Chairman. My last conversation regarding it was

with Bill Brown, the Parliamentarian, who suggested that

our report ought to be filed on the 28th, that

we ought to check with the leadership and have the leadership

of the Rules Committee hear us on the 29th and that we should

go to the floor on the 30th. Now that is the last conver-

sation I have had with Mr. Brown at that time when he

indicated how we should go about procedurally filing

the report and so forth in setting up our rules.

Some häve said information discussion. Maybe

we should think about going to the Rules Committee before the

29th to give ourselves a little extra leeway in the event

we encounter some problems. But certainly we :::

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ought to sit with the leadership well in advance of the

28th--I would think no later than the first of next week

is appropriate--where we can say to them what we have been

able to do up to now and give them a good account of the

Committe's work.

Mr. Ford. Mr. Chairman.

The Chairman. Mr. Ford.

Mr. Ford. Is this basically you are talking about the

members of the Rules Committee, or are weigoing tonsend a

memo around to all of our colleagues in bringing them up to

date because wegare going to need all of those votes.on

the House floor. :

Mr. Edgar. Will the gentleman yield.

Mr. Ford.. Yes.

MI. Edgar. I think my interpretation of time table

is to have a meeting with the Rules committee on Monday,

andiTuesday, have a public meéting on Wednesday and

Thursday and. Fridy would be the dates that bur. "Dear

Colleague" letters would go around bringing everybody up

to dateson. the budget and on the proposed date and the

form of reconstitution which, as I understand it, is a year

extension on the budget and a two-year authorization for the

Committee, itself. By Thursday and Friday of next week,

If I understand Mr. Fithian's comments which will be

made a little bit later, we will have done a whip count

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of the House to find out where our problems lie, whether

they are in the area of budget or in the area of reconstitut-

ing the Committee at all and what our problems are and

we will be spending Thursday, Friday and Monday and Tuesday

of the following week trying to work on individual Congress-

men to help clarify for them where the Committee is at.

I thing our "Dear Colleague" letter should include some

of the information that would be shared at our public meeting

next Wednesday and that is a kind of a direction. I think

everything we do has to be focusedon the King Assassination

amd the Kennedy Assassination. We have got to kind of direct

our reconstitution around the issues of the investigation •

and I think that is the only way that we will get enough

votes for the reconstitution at this point. And they

are going to be asking us at that point in our history what

it is that we have found to date, what is it that we have done

todate, what is it going to cost us to continue you for a

year, and I think we are very justifiable in sharing that

at.a.public.meeting.

The Chairman. Let me ask you this, if the gentleman

yields to me for a moment--a question in terms of your pro-

cedure here. I am sure that one of the main issues

when we go to rules will be the issue of the budget and

procedurally if we go to rules on Tuesday, whether the

Budget is going to be discussed perhaps very comprehensively,

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then it sort of seems to take away from the Wednesday public

hearing to go into in depth discussion because your news

media will be at the Rules Committee meeting.

MI. Edgar. I think what Chris was suggesting, if

I was hearing Chris right, who is on the Rules Committee,

that the Executive Sessiondf the meeting of the Rules Com-

mittee be held on Tuesday.

The Chairman. I see.

Mr. Edgar. And that briefing only partly deals with the

Budget; the other part dealing with information on where

we are in the investigation to date and that ietnot

the meeting of the rules Committee to consider the

reconstitution of the Committee.

The Chairman. I see.

Mr. Edgar. That meeting according to the schedule you

were suggesting would be on the Tuesday prior to the actual

vote on the floor. This might solve the problem that you

were worried about. and that is getting to the Rules Committee

early, you will know on Tuesday, if you meet in Executive

Session and share the investigation with them on where the

assassinations are and what our proposed budget is going

to be, what kinds. of problems you will have before the

Rules Committee and that will give you a week's time until

your official meeting of the Rules. Committee in public to

be granted a rule for house floor action.

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Mrs. Burke. Would the gentleman yield?

The Chairman. Mrs. Burke.

Mrs. Burke. Do we have any idea of the number of

people who have requested to appear before the Rules Com-

mittee? I understood Mr. Milford and I had heard a couple

of other people, had requested to appear. The last time

I do not think it was so much the problem with the Rules

Committee as we had as the problem of getting all of the

witnesses in one day. So the Rules Committee hearing, itself.

went for two days.:: by the time all the witnesses testified

I got the impression:that there were still a number

witnesses who wanted to be heard by the Rules Committee

but I think maybe, if we can clarify that, we can tell

about how. much time it would take for us to complete our

work before the Rules Connittee..

Because I would really hate to see us be on Tuesday,

March 28 starting a rules committee hearing where

there are ten people asking to testify.

The Chairman. Yes.

Mrs. Burke. And then we have the other disadvantage

If we do not testify and you have all anti people testify-

ing, you are at a distinct specific--

MI. Ford. Would the gentlelady yield?

Mrs. Burke.

Yes:

Mr. Ford. I am under the impression you were speaking

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about this coming Tuesday in Executive Session to talk about

the budget with the Rules Committee now.

Mrs. Burke. Well, what I mean is the actual hearing

that I understand would be the next Tuesday.

Mr. Fithian. We might need to start that public hearing

in the Rules Committee well ahead of Tuesday. You would

have to have action by the Rules Committee on Tuesday.

Mrs. Burke. Action by the Committee on Tuesday, I

think, is what we should shoot for.

Mr. Fithian: Start as early as Friday.

The Chairman. Why don't we meet with the leadership

then on Friday, have discussion with the-leadership in- terms

of how to get up to rules, cover that?

'Mrs Burke. Also, Mr. Chairman, if you could give us

some kind of idea maybe you could kind of assign people

that you wanted to answer certain specific things to testify

once we had an idea of who is going to be testifying in

opposition.

The Chairman. Right,. I think that that is important:

wenorchestratesa that to the degree that some members

of interest in certain areas and have taken the time to

get answers to questions in certain areas and it would

seem to me that in that way we might better orchestrate:our

responses.

For instance, where MI..Edgar and Mr. Fithian have

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taken a special interest in some of the charges relating to

Mr. Sprague, that they would be the ones to respond to those

types of issues which they are well informed on and I think

we might try to orchestrate that before going to the rules.

Mr. Edgar. Mr. Chairman, I have jotted down a summary

of what I have said. Maybe I could repeat it, since Mr.

Preyer has just come in.

The Chairman. All right.

Mr. Edgar. I made the suggestion that the following

scenario be developed and that is that on Monday, March 21,

next week a meeting be held with the leadership to bring

them up to date where we are with the budget as well as any

additional leads we have.

Mr. Devine. Are you speaking of the meeting of the

Committee or the meeting of the Chairman?

Mr. Edgar. I would think that meeting of the Chairman

and those members; minority and majority--I think Mr. Preyer

should be present. I think the ranking minority member

should be present.

Mr. Devine. Sometimes the leadership is uncomfortable

with minority present. I am not offended one way of

the other:

Mr. Edgar. Well, I think at this time, it might be

necessary to have the minority present to point out bipartisan

participation, the second scenario Tuesday, March 22 and

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a request be made of the Rules Committee to hold an Executive

meeting to again be briefed in a very similar way to

the way in which the leadership was briefed on Monday as

to the proposed budget as well as direction of the Committee.

And that on Wednesday, March 23 a public meeting be held

for two hours minimum of this Committee between 10 and 11

o'clock at which time we would begin with perhaps a 45-

minute reporting, split between the Kennedy and king

assassinations as to what direction we are going and what

evidence and information we can share publicly.

That at or approximately at a quarter of 11

or so, Mr. Preyer would be recogiized to give a report on

the budget task force and then we would deal with

the resolution and the budget task force information in a

public hearing and finally the last caveat of that meeting

would be to focus in on one of the two assassinations and

some particular issue that is newsworthy or of newsworthy

interest that could be shared with the public. And that

would make the meeting really three-fold, one to bring us

up to date on direction two, to finalize the reconstitution

resolution language with

the budget and three to focus in on

one specific issue.

Thursday and Friday of next week the 24th and

25th this would be used for "Dear Colleague letters" that

world be sent by us, urging support.

Byathat time

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the Budget figure will be public and by that time any

information that is shared at the public meeting on Wednesday

can be aired.

Also we might want to consider Thursday of next

week filing our report. It doesn't seem to me that we have

to wait until Monday to do that and that perhaps woudd

give the Rules Committee Monday and Tuesday to hear public

witnesses on whether of not we should be reconstituted and

we could perhaps file our report on Thursday or Friday

and the House Committee would then have Monday and Tuesday

to review the issues of reconstitution..

And that we would ask the Rules Committee to set up

their schedule so that on the 29th they would move to final

action and if they feel they need two days for that, they

then could have hearings on Monday the 28th as well as

the 29th and the report will have been submitted.

And we would then go to the House Floor on Wednesday

the 30th, under an open rule, one hour debate, I assume

for the resolution.

Mr. Devine. Mr. Chairman.

The Chairman. Yes, Mr. Devine.

Mr. Devine. That brings up the question of mechanics

and preparing, selecting content, approving or having

printed the Conmittee report. I was wondering from a

time standpoint just how long the mechanics would take

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place, and that could be considerable, the same ones we are

in position to talk about.

The Chairman. Anyone have a response to that?

Mr. Devine. We, in the Committee, have to determine

what the content will be.

The Chairman. Right.

MX. Devine. 9gò, I do not know.

Mr. Edgar. Much of that preparation will be done by

the Wednesday meeting I would assume.

Mr. Sprague. Mr. Chairman.

The Chairman. Mr. Sprague.

Mr. Sprague. I would think that we could have a draft

of a report for this Committee to pass out among you

for thoughts about it, let us say, this coming Monday at

some point and if you would give us now some thoughts as

to things that you would like to see included in there, we

would include that as well and then from that kind of a draft

perhaps either the latter part of Monday or some early

part of the week, we could get together and do that. We

could have then a report perhaps to be considered by the

Committee by Wednesday.

I do not know what the printing time would be after

that.

Mr. Devine. We have to give you some direction before

that about what you feel about the contents.

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Mr. Sprague. If you could give some now, it would

be' helpful.

The Chairman. Also supposedly if that is presented at

the Wednesday meeting which would be an additional part

of the agenda and then, of course, we would allow, the

necessary time for supplemental views and additional

views to the

report which provides each member a chance

for any additional views or supplement thereto.

Mr. Devine. And/or any dissenting.

The Chairman. And/or any dissenting, all of that.

MI. Edgar. Mr. Chairman, I wonder if we could ask

the Staff, having heard the scenario, whether they have any

concern about any part of that.

The Chairman. Mr. Sprague.

MI.Sprague...:Mrz-Chairman, first thing I did want

to say we did have copies of a proposed resolution to

pass out now for the Conmittee for you perhaps looking at

and giving some thought while we are together at this

session..

With regard to that proposed scenario, it sounds fine

but I would really think that that aspect dealing with

a public hearing in a presentation by Mr. Lehner and Mr.

Tannenbaun is not workable, for the reason that what

they can say publicly is really almost a rehash kind of

thing. It is not saying anything--the only things that they

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can say of significance you heard in the Executive session

the other day, things that are too raw and uncorroborated

for us to be stating publicly.

It may have an effect for what you have in mind in

terms of a budget but it is not what we can do or ought to

do. To not say those things is only to be saying what?

That we have to, we want to go up to Canada, we want to

check how people used these aliases, we want to go out

and check things in California, that has been said time and

time again. And a presentation that just is repeating

basically what would be guestionad by anyone who would --

infactlthey have heard it from us before as well. I do not

know. whether that meets the bill you have in mind. In fact

I really question in my mind whether the reaction to

thatspublicly is what are they doing over and over again.

The final thing is like you say --we end up on one particular

thing that you are going to go into, again, if we are to

investigate this, we do not do it by just focusing on a

thing, we really go back to the scenes of these citries

and have got to find out who was there, what they saw,

how to get to that scene, what happened since?

Mr. Edgard. Would the gentleman yield?

Mr. Sprague.

Yes.

MI. Edgar. I think you are accurate in terms of

information you could share with the rehashing but let me

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just share this: That if it was a rehashing that was

focused on what direction; what organizational direction

we had come and what direction we plan to go in the future

in terms of general leads and move then to the resolution

of reconstitution. What I was suggesting is that last half

hour was something like what we did yesterday. We had

Mr. Traficantee there and he was pleading the 5th. Amend-

ment. I think we did more yesterday, even without getting

factual information simply because it focused again on the

fact that we are looking into the issue. And I would think

that there is at least one subpoena that we have issued that

may be returnable at that point or one person that might even

come at that point to be interrogated by the Committee,

or one piece of information and I realize that, in terms

of the investigate technique and issues that is not the

way to go, but I guess i have some concern about the scenario

and choreographt of getting the committee reconstituted

and I realize that while we do not want a circus atmosphere,

we want it to be as content filled as possible, but I

doubt that we will be able to reconstitute ourselves 1f

we are: not able to demonstrate to the House that Mr. Stokes

is: now taking the Comnittee seriously, he is now bringing

the STaff before it

at a public meeting to outline where

we plan to go in terms of direction, we review carefully

a budget and then we focus in on one issue and indicate

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this is going to be the course of the investigation from

now on.

We are going to take one piece of the pie and thoroughly

look into it.

The Chairman. Mr. Fithian.

MI. Fithian. Could I add one thing to that before you

proceed?

I agree with you, Dick, the bringing us up to date

will appear as a rehash to those of us who are really immersed

in it.

I think you may totally overestimate the attention

that has been paid to this by members of the House. You

know the members of the House are now talking about things

which were currently important in December or January.

Now, educating the public is a very, very difficult thing.

Getting them them focused is a difficult thing. Rationaliz-

ing Mr: Pteyer's budget that he is going to propose is

going to be a difficult thing.. It seems to me that, if

we are going to, if we are responsible to the House, we

ought to be alble to come back, to the House and tell them

why we came up with X number of millions of dollars in

the budget and the rationale for that budget has to

depend on two things: (1) where have we been? (2) where

are we going?

Now, quite honestly unless we can tell them that in

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some reasonable way, we are not going to get their support.

because they expect that and they deserve that.

Mr. Sprague. Mr. Chairman.

The Chairman.

Mr. Sprague.

SOrry, MI, Devine.

M=. Devine. I think it would be a serious error

if we went into simply a rehash of what people learned from

the Warren report, from the Senate Committee and so forth.

Perhaps we should touch on just a few of those things in

passing but in talking to the Staff and to Mr. Sprague, I know

that they have literally hundreds of undeveloped leads.

Now, if from that group of udeveloped leads you could

discuss generally without revealing names, dates, times or

places, that for instance, as I think you told us in

Executive Session about:the information of another member

trying to inform us about a former police officer of long-

standing in a large metropolitan police department, had

information suggesting these things. And that we have

another witness in a state that was an eye witness-to the

King of the Kennedy matter that was never interviewed by

either the Warren Commission or the Senate

So we get maybe as many as ten undeveloped leads

that you could get enough of it not to reveal the identity

and not to disturb the investigation but let people know

that, My God, they are onto something that is new stuff

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and get a direction.

I think that would be better than just a rehash of

what the Warren Commission report was.

The Chairman. On that point, let me further amplify

what I think the members here are getting at, what Mr.

Devine just said.

Interestingly enough with all of us being aware of

what yesterday's hearing démonstrated fublicly, and was con-

ducted in a way in which it was not overstaged or in

a circus atmosphere or anything of that sort, but interesting

enough; an article out of the Cleveland Plain Dealer this

morning after they write about the entire situation and

tell, and reported irvery accurately, then they quoted

me with reference to the appearance of Traficantee. And

speaking of me, said "He said, call Traficantee, that

.

demonstrates that the Committee is forging ahead with this

investigation. James Delaney, Democrat of New York, the

Chairman of the House Rules Committee said the panel will

have to produce something more substantial than witnesses

refusing to testify to justify the House spending more

money on the investigation. The Rules Committee approval

will be needed to continue the Committee's charter after

March 31. Delbert I. Latta,a

key Republican o. the Committee

agreed. The Committee has to come up with something

that gets to the point that the investigations are more than

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just a wild-goose chase, he said. I think that is right.

MI. Edgar. I think that is at the heart of what I

was trying to say, and that is that the facts of life of

getting the Committee reconstituted are the agenda for the

next two weeks and it is unfortunate, because it ties

the hands of the investigators who have these leads and I

want to see us reconstituted so that we do not have to go

to the House for another year for money and for another

two years at all in terms of any action in terms of rules

or anything.

I think that, if we cannot somehow develop a

public discussion of the budget, that is not connected with

some unknown issue but is actually connected with the kind

of thing that Mr. Devine is suggesting and that is 8 or 9

or 10 directions that we are going in light of these steps

that we havé made.

Now one of the things that could be publicly announced

are some of the subpoenas that have been sent to

gather information and I think just summarizing for every-

body, though it sounds like rehashing to us, it may

be stuff that is rehashed in public as opposed to the Execu-

tive sessions and 'then to focus in on five directions

that we are chipping away in the Ring investigation and

five that we are chipping away in the Kennedy investigation,

information that.is.causing. us some. concern.

Now..you..asked.guestions.yesterday of MI. Taficantee.

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And if you were alert, you knew why you were asking those

questions but to the average person, particularly the

average Congressman who is very busy, the only thing he

remembers about yesterday's event with Mr. Traficantee is

that he pleased the 5th. I think there is some information

that we can share about Mr. Traficantee that might beta

lead that would permit us to reach the circle.

The Chairman. Mr. Preyer, and then we will get back

to you, Mr. Sprague.

Mr. Preyer. Mr. Chairman, I had thought in terms

of the report and I think the report basically is what

we are talking about --the public meeting--I think basically

approaches probably abaut the same--and one way to pitch

it would be in terms of what are the unanswered questions

which we need to deal with.

In the Kennedy assassination, speaking of that, Boggs'

memo lists the whole series of witnesses whom we could

not name but I think there are a number of unanswered

questions that we could

put forward. The thing that

disturbes me is the suggestion in Mr. Delaneu's comments

there and we have heard from others, too, the

leadership that if we do not show evidence that we are going

to get a different result, then it is a waste of time.

It seemed to me that is entirely off the track in:

the Kennedy thing particularly.

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It seems to me that we are going to answer some.

questions that might have the same result, but there are

good reasons to do this, even if you come out with the same

result, just to lay to rest certain theories, and we could

say here are.the facts.on it, he is right or he is wrong

on it and I wonder if we cannot, you know, put enough

questions to be answered without having to suggest we

are going to come up with a sensational new answer to the

thing, just that because of credibility of our government,

we need to lay them to rest, new questions that the

Warren Connission,-a lot of that would be rehashing but if

we could suggest somewhere along the line you know that

we have witnesses that at least we want to follow up on to

follow up on a particular question and Traficantee,

for example, since he is out there aard:I:think: thatrarea is

generally known, the things he said in the past, maybe.

there we would want to indicate that as an area that we

want to follow up on and perhaps explain why he was

called when we say we are not calling other people who have

been interviewed but Traficantee is obviously the kind

of fellow you cannot interview. So really, to call him

was a responsible action, it was not an irresponsible thing.

The Oswald letter to Hunt and so forth is an obvious

thing that is going to have to be answered some time, so

many of these things need to be answered. So I was

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thinking in terms of report as emphasizing unanswered

questions and following up on them is really what we are

about,not trying to come up with a different result.

And that we might be able to discuss some of those at

the hearing or in the report without laying out too many

names and facts.

Mr. Fithian. Would you agree with Mr. Devine and that

is that we could discuss and we specifically refer to areas

named of unnamed as far as that is concerned, of witnesses

or of questions which have not been looked into, I think

that is what I run into all the time--are you doing anything

new or are you just digging up the old bones?

Well, to get the answers that you want, you are going

to have to dig up all the answers and go to the scene of

the murder and all that. That is not what anybody is

interested in at this point, that is part of the whole.

problem but what I think Mr. Devine is interested in is

part of the whole program, is this Committee looking into

anything that has not already been studied to get by the

Church Connission, the Warren Commission, et al, and

if we are not, then we just have to come down real hard on

what Mr. Preyer is saying and say, well enough questions

about what they did that we are just looking at the same

things or may or may not come up with the same answer but I

kind of think we could do both of those things.

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Mr. Devine: Well, just to oversimply instead of

treating water, we should plow a little new ground.

Mr. Sprague. Mr. Chairman, we can do what Mr. Devine

says and Mr. Preyer and the whole thrust of this. However,

I find' that part of the difficulty from an investigative

standpoint but a second difficulty is that what we have

done or are doing is being distorted by the media for whatever

their reasons are.

I am kind of at a loss here when we are talking about

what are we to be presenting

and in

what format, when really

what we are trying to do is get back to Mr. Delaney and MI.

Latta.

Now, what we in fact have as you got at the time

of the Executive session briefing is some, what I consider

valuable information which, even at this threshold area, does

plow new ground. Must we get to Mr. Delaney and Mr. Latta only

on the basis of working out a presentation in some purified

manner which it scintillates, taking the chance on

how is the

news media going to report what it is that

we have done here, hoping that Mr. Delaney, maybe, is going

to read that article or

Mr. Edgar. Would the gentleman yield?

Mr: Sprague.--or maybe has not read it and he is

responding on the basis of just somebody running in and

saying, hay did you hear that that Committee dropped that

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the leadership on Monday, sharing that very sensitive data.

It involves sitting down on Tuesday with the Rules Committee

in Executive Session, sharing that sensitive data, being

perceived only by the press as being an executive: session.

Oh: Wednesday, separate from Mr. Latta andir. Delaney,

we have members of Congress, much of the general publle, that

puts pressure on members of Congress in terms of their

votes for or against reconstitution. I think that there are

three different issues. The first issue is what do you

say to the leadership and how do you get them on your side

not just nodding your head or working for you? If Tip O'Neill

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is not with us on this thing, we lose the votes in the

Rules Committee. That is a fact of life.

Secondly, we have got to say to the Rules Committee,

here is the information

that we are pursuing in a very

sensitive way under this very strict condition and share

with them the data that has been shared by this committee.

And the third part of it is less sensitive than that and

it is just the unanswered questions on the part of the

general membership, the uninitiated Congressman who has

got to cast a vote or the uninitiated person in the general

public that is putting pressure on that Congressman in terms

of his vote. The Congressman, basically, is saying, what

am I going to get for my money and how much is it going to

cost, and are there enough unanswered questions to pursue

or should we simply scuttle this and spend the on public

works or on some other issue?

I was not suggesting that Wednesday's meeting be

for the Dulaneys and for the Lattas and the Tip O'Neills

or the Jim Wrights. The Wednesday meeting is mùch more of

our public announcement similar to yesterday's session

that we are serious about the investigation of kind and

Kennedy. We are serious enough to offer this report and

this resolution and this budget, and we have a number of

elements of leads, one specific one being to capture their

imagination.:

MI. Devine. Mr. Chairman.

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The Chairman. Mr? Devine.

Mr. Devine. This, of course, is not the way to conduct

an investigation, Mr. Sprauge knows that as the Staff

does. But what we are talking about today is survival.

The Chairman.

Yes.

Let me inject one additional element for the consider-

ation of Mr. Edgar, though, and it bears upon what Mr. Sprague

has said and this is just for the purpose of further

dialogue on the issue--the news media, there is an additional

pearl when Mr. Sprague starts briefing us and making comments

in the open about new witnesses and people who were not

talked to. A few days ago

when he, in response to a question

put to him by me in open meeting, caused reverberations

throughout the Congress. What I was trying to obtain from

him was the necessity for us to go into Executive Session,

and I posed a question, would the briefing be in the nature

of matter that should be undertaken in executive session

and he, in response to that, said, yes, Mr. Chairman, we

will present testimony regarding others who may have been

involved, and so on.

The newsmedia went wild with that. Calls came in

from Canada about the

fact, didn't Sprague say this, that

he has some others--evidence of conspiracy. This and that.

They ran wild with it. At the same time it had another repert

cussion in the Congress. Those who had made Mr. Sprague the

issue, used this to say there he is, spouting off at the

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mouth again, Sprague again, speaking for the Committee,

instead of the Committee and the news media is going to

take that briefing from him and turn it around.

Mr. Edgar: Would the gentleman yield?

The Chairman: Certainly.

MI: Edgar. I:will not have Mr. Sprague say more than

a sentence or two at that public meeting. I would have Mr.

Tannenbaul, Mr. Lehner report for Mr. Sprague on what they

have done in their separate investigations and I would

have Mr. Sprague there and present but clearly saying that

here are his two chief investigators who have briefed the

staff and the committee in executive session, we are

summarizing here in public session what we are about, and

turn to Mr. Tannenbaum and say now in relationship to the

Ring investigation would you give your report at this time.

I think that if it was carefuly written and carefully

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done --

Mr. Fithian. I am wondering.

The Chairman. Mrs. Burke, I think has been seeking

recognition.

Mrs. Bürke.

Well, there are two points I just wanted

to hit on very fast. No. 1, I would like to see added to

the briefing of the leadership and the briefing of the

Rules Committee in executive session the kind of thing that

Mr. Devine is talking about and those are leads. If there

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could be developed a list of undeveloped leads that could be

presented to the Rules Committee, so they could get an idea

of what we are working on, I think that is what we want them

to know. You know, I think the sunmary is very good but

beyond that you nead to say, O.R. where are we going, and

if we show a list of those leads, witnesses that need to be

interviewed, there is a general feeling of what the future

kind of work needs to be done, I think the leadership and

also the Rules Committee needs that.

My second problem is this, in between all of this

if I could see the kind of a public statement that you have

in mina, I would be better able to evaluate it. I have been

sitting here, wracking my brain, trying to figure out what

would be in the public presentation and I cannot visualize

it because every. time I think of something I think of

something that immediately the press is going to do what

you are talking about here, so I would like to reserve at this

point on a determination until perhaps we could get some-

thing before us

as to what you see would be presented in

this public presentation.

Mr. Edgar. I would think. the same data that is

going to be presented in the report to justify the reconsti-

tution of this Committee would be what would be shared in

the public meeting.

Mrs. Burke.

You see this is my proble, I cannot

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visualize the kind of things that you have determined can

be presented versus those things that cannot be presented

without undermining investigation. It would be very

helpful to me and I suspect to some others, we would have

some of that before us and then make an intelligent deter-

mination.

Mx. Fithian.. I was going to suggest, if perhaps the

Wednesday session would not be, we can use this instead of

calll.:f it a briefing, just simply say, you know, the

Committee is working on the report. I do not know what

the date of the schedule of the report is but you know, in

some committees you discuss the report at some length

that you are going to go to the Congress with and actually

--

vote on including this that or the other thing.

I wonder if we could not use that for the rationale

you know, what we are doing today is voting or agreeing upon

a report that we are going to Congress with and have the

two presenting pieces of the report.

We are not then,

you see, Mr. Sprague, trying to tell them all out there

a rehash, we are doing a logical parliamentarian process

simply to prepare a report to the Congress. We would not

be there moving for anything new, it is just what

we have been doing; we cannot include everything or we

would break the bank in printing it.

Mr. Edgar. Mr. Chairman.

The Chairman. O.R.

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Before you replay, Mr. Sprague, we have a vote on

the Floor, on the NASA authority.

MI. Devine. Rule on the NASA authority.

The Chairman. O.K.

While on the floor, I will have to request permission

for us to meet during the 5-minute rule session, in order

for us to be able to sit legally.

Mr. Fithian. It is not within the five-minute

rule, is it?

The Chairman. No, but if we are going to be meeting

later, it looks like we are going to have to go for a while--

I must

do that before we meet later on today when we get

into that session so I suppose we had better do that because

it looks like we have got quite a few matters to discuss.

Mr. Preyer. I wonder, Mr. Chairman, if we could

endorse the scenario-idea position which makes sense to me

and maybe wait before we decide what we are going to do

on Wednesday, I agree with Mrs. Burke, I have a hard time

knowing just exactly what it is we are going to try to pre-

sent. Did you indicate that you have a draft of the report

perhaps by Monday.

Mr. Preyer. We could if you would give us also some

idea fof things you would like included in the report today

so we could start working.

I wonder if we could go ahead with the scenario but

hold off with the decision of what we do on Wednesday to at

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see the report and maybe --

MI. Devine. MI. Chairman, the immediate problem

is we are going to have to go. The second bell has not

run yet but are you prepared to meet these wolves outside

the door--do you know what you are going to tell them

all we have done in here.

Tell them of what we have done in here.

The Chairman: That is a hard question, too. It just

seems to me at this time in liyht of yesterday's hearings

what I hae been trying to say to them essentially is

that we are still discussing matters that relate to the

entire investigation and many matters which are sensitive

in nature and I have left it go at that. They want

to know, can you give us something about the subject

matter and I say, just the investigation.

Mr. Preyer. The budget is always a pretty good

thing to discuss, I guess.

Mr. Sprague. I thought you did not want to focus on

that.

M rs: Burke. Tell'them we are talking about the

report.

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Mr. Fithian. I think you shouldkeep them right

where you have them now, champing at the bit and not tell

them anything

The Chairman.

I think it has more aura because we have

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been on the investigation two. days and especially with

Trafcantee being here --we are not just dismissing his appear-

ance.

Mr. Sprague. And I Have things to report back on that

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anyway.

The Chairman.. O.K. we will come back.

Yes, we are in room 2325 siine the Committée Space room

when we return.

Mrs. Burke. What time?

Mr. Fithian Have the people thing we keep moving

around just to keep them off balance.

The Chairman. Room 2325 which is on the third floor

of this building. We will reconvene there immediately after

the roll call. I will be a little late. I will ask Mr.

Pryer to take the Chair.

(Recess.)

(The Committee reconvened in Room 2325 Rayburn

House Office Building at 12:15 p.m.

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The Chairman.

The Committee will come back to

order.

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We are once again in Executive Session and I assume

all personnel in the room are permitted.

Mr: Dodd. Mr. Chairman.

The Chairman. MI. Dodd.

Mr. Dodd. Mr. Chairman, I spoke with Chairman Dulaney

on the floor about the prospects of going before the Rules

Committee.

He is amenable to it and I would like to do it.

His problem is one of scheduling. One, the Situs Picketing

bill is up before the Rules Committee at One p.m. on

Monday and they expect that to take the entire afternoon,

if not Tuesday so he was talking about Wednesday or so.

I told him that I thought the presantation in executive

session, informal presentation in Executive Session, would

not necessarily take any imore than 45 minutes to an

hour if we could boil it down in any way and we are trying

to work out possibly around noon on Monday. We wanted to clear

it with the Speaker before he did anything and will get

back to me this afternoon.. He is very interested in doing

it. It is really a question of working out the time and

making sure the Speaker does not have any objections to

that kind of a program.

The Chairman. All right.

Mr. Dodd. He should have time, yes.

The Chairman. Fine.

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We will just make ourselves available.

At the time we

recessed, we still had the matter

under discussion as to the nature of the agenda of the public

meeting, so we will resume discussion on that point if

there are further comments.

Mr. Sprague. Not to belabor the point but I guess

Inhave a feeling as I have said from the investigative stand-

point and I agree with what Mrs. Burke and Judge Pryer said,

that it is very difficult to think of what is being presented

publicly that is meaningful, that doesnot get into that

which ought to not be presented and if we really want to focus

on what will make a headline and perhaps something that

members of Congress can read, because I think the only

thing basically that is read

l is the headline, not the

story. We are then subject to the headline writer. You know,

we could present that whole memo from the Executive

Session.

You know, obviously to do that is to throw away at

least the immediate efforts in this investigation and I

find myself' again wondering whether or not a presentation lnis

lessens then that does not subject us to merely.a

headline writer that said almost Ho-hum," or "nothing' new,"

and whether the risk of that is not greater than the

potential advantage of

something being there that all of a

sudden makes it look like we are striking pay dirt.

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secondly, I do find myself wondering to what extent

the concept of this being of influence to other members

of Congress as meaninful..

It kind of assumes that the story is reported

accurately, it assumes that the members of Congress read

the story in its entirety. I question both those assumptions.

It seems to me that if the thought is to get it out because

then of the pressure that will come from the public back

to the Congress, the realities are that the people who were

contacting their Congressmen are primarily those that are

against something. Those that are for, they will read that

but they are not motivated to write saying, you had

better get this thing through.

Even that assumption questions who become the letter-

writers and in addition to that since time is of the essence

here, I really wonder to what extent whatever is reported in

the press next week is going to get acted upon that quickly

by-members of a public that convey their attitudes in a

significant manner to members of Congress which is going to

be the basis of action that they may take and finally, I am

struck by the fact that, let us say that Mr. Latta has

expressed himself as he has. Mr. Latta, as I understand it,

lives with Mr. Devine, they share an apartment.

You know, we have our report, I am willing that it be

avallable to members of Congress through members of this

Committee.

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It seems to me that, if we are trying to get to

that member, and in fact we may be on the Rules Committee,

I do not mean him particularly, but we are happy to have,

let us say, Mr. Devine have a copy of that report one

evening with

Mr. Latta, sit down, read this thing, let

us talk about it.

Now if after he has read it, that does not persuade

him, I daresay nothing in the paper, nothing that

you do publicly is going to persuade him. It seems to me that

the effort trat has to be made again is not just a matter of

the formulation of the questions of the leadership that they

or whatever members of the Congress that this Committee

things can be important, that they just have to literally

dragged, if that can be done, and set down and a presentation

made to them. To try to do it through this indirect

vehicle, I think is just not going to be effective.

The Chairman. Mr. Fithian.

Mr: Fithian: Thank you.

I would not want fir. Sprague to operate under the delu-

sion that we were going to rely on the Washington Post recon-

stituting us; nor that we were going to rely on this

next Wednesday meeting reconstituing.us. At the earliest

opportunity, later in the session here, I am prepared to

present a plan for the politics of this in terms of getting

the required votes.

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However, I would say, and there is a great deal of

accuracy in what you say both in terms of timing and

all the rest. The one thing that attraced me to Mr. Edgar's

proposal was that the two or three public meetings that

we have had, even regardless of how badly Lardner had

reported them, and he has reported them pretty badly, have

nonetheless to erode the feeling generally held by many

members of the House that we really have not done anything.

It is to the question, what have you done since.

you have been constituted last October, we are precious

hard to come up with anything without going into leads which

we cannot talk about. The very fact that the Committee

is meeting in an orderly process, it is being briefed by

its two investigators for each saide, whether that is a

justification for the report that we are now going to submit

or whether we figure out some other way of justifying what

they are doing, we then move to orderly discussion of the

budget and so on.

These are things which, if they

are occurring, tend

to transmit almost by rote training to other Congressmen

that the normal functions are being performed, that is that :

the Committee is discussing its report. The Committee

is discussing its budget, the Committee is discussing the

things that justify it continuing to spend its time.

All of these things are common among the members of the!

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House. They do not appear as much in the paper, they

certainly do not appear as anything to investigators, I am

sure of that and they do not swing a deal that they wilt

ote against this resolution--if Sam Devine sat down with

DeLatta for six hours, he is not going to vote for this, unless

MI. Stokes has any magic that I do not know of.

The Chairman. I do ot have any.

Mr. Fithian. I still intend to inquire as to how

we ean proceed and we have to discuss the budget at

some time and whether or not we cannot use this public

session on Wednesday as a demonstration that we are working,

we are proceeding on in anorderly fashion.

Mr. Sprague. I certainly would not disagree with

anything you said, all I do want to emphsize is that

while I do not know the result of it, Mr. Devaney had

myself and Mr. Tannenbaur and Mr. Lehner last night meet

with some people, members of Congress--they are not particu-

larly enamored with this Committee and the purposes with

meeting with them maybe that when they heard something,

when they saw the kind of personnel that we had, that their

attitudes might change and whil,e I do not deal in asking

people for commitments, I would say that as a result of just

that getting together here with some people who have been

stronglopponents, who by the end of it gave pretty good

indication that they might perhaps be changing their minds.

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Now, to do what you say from a cosmetic sense,

and a soothing sense, I understand that but I guess I am

focusing on what really will help get a job done.

Mr. Edgar. Would the gentleman yield?

I was not going to say too much coming back since

the idea was shared this morning but I think that it is very

important to look at the psychology of what we are about.

And I think that Mi. Fithian is exactly right in that the

public and the Congress have to be reinforced that the

Committee isiin control and that the Committee is pursuing

the investigation in an orderly fashion.

Now. I think that you do have competent investigators

that have briefed us and I guess at the heart of my

suggestion, and I think Mrs. Burke perhaps has a better idea,

and that is, after we review the report, it seems to me that

a public session is in order to have that report revealed,

discuss the 'budget, discuss what direction the committee

is going to go in four or five or ten or whatever possible

directive leads that we are heading on in a general way,

and I think that youlknow ittsshould not be misunderstood

that we intend this public session to be a session where we

are, in fact, going to change the minds of a lot of .

Congressmen on specific issues but I think the public

meeting should be perceived as a public affirmation that the

Committee is erious, as well as tool whereby we follow

that up with specific action through the "Dear Colleague"

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letters and through specific discussions with those

Congressmen in person sharing in more detail the kind of

information that you have shared in smaller settings.

I think, if we go, between now and the 30th of March,

only with private settings, only with private discussions

with Congressmen, we may find ourselves on March 30 shy of

some votes because we have not given the general

Congress the impression that the Committee is working

actively and pursuing it.

And with respect to MI. Sprague's investigative skills

and I think investigation beyond the 30th should proceed

as aggressively and in depth as possible, but the psychology

in the next two weeks is important and I think we need

both in-apth discussionwith the Rules Committee and

the leadership and the in-depth discussion with Congressmen

at the same time we are perceived in the public media

as being about our business.

Mrs. Burke.. I have just been thinking about some

report. language. When I suggest that I have no pride of

authoriship, it may not make sense so I

am just throwing it

out and one

thing I was thinking is that we explain that

the number of documents that have been reviewed as I understand,

there are 8001classified.:documents.of which 112

have been reviewed but that we have been unable to review

other because of a läck of access because of the security

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problem and the delay in FBI allowing us to get them.

Second, I was thinking about on the witnesses, a state-

ment like this, have interviewed blank number of witnesses,

blank number of whon have testified or given statements

to the Warren Connission and have since changed their testi-

moneypor contend that they misrepresented their

testimony based on duress, or fear or something like that.

Have interviewed blank number of police officers

or former intelligence agents who wish to give information

they had withheld because of whatever reason and what I

am trying to do is to go in a direction of where you indicate

the new things without getting bogged down in detail.

I think it is true, we have a number of police officers,

intelligence officers who have come forward and who wish

to give it.

I think that gives some credibility--witnesses who

have appeared before the Warren Commission who testi fed to

one thing and who since have changed it has the aura of

new ground.

Iairtiying:to think of things that I

can suggest for the report.

The Chairman. I can appreciate that. I wonder if we

might not have Mr. Tannenbaum, Mr. Lehner or both

respond to Mrs. Burke's

suggestion in terms of whether

the report might be able to help. Mr. Lehner.

Mr. Lehner. Sure. I think that we can do what has been

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suggested but I do not think we could do it at much length

in a public setting.. I think when you talk about 45 minutes

I would have to do a little "soft shoe dance" in the middle

of it. I think what Mrs. Burke has suggested is something

that can be worked out and it can be done in outline form but

I would not want to.

Mrs: Burke. I am talking about report language. I

really have noit gotten to the public thing, just report

language.

Mr. Lehner. I think that definitely can be worked out

and can be done for the record as well. It has to be done

so that we are not, it doesn't look as if we are intentionally

giving information which an investigate reporter ushing his

research and using his intellect, can get to exact!: people

who were involved in this, that is something we have to

be very careful about.

;

Obviously, we will be discussing that before we report

back to you next.

The Chairman. MI. Tannenbaum, do you want to respond.

Mr. Tannenbaum. If you wish, sir.

The Chairman. Yes, sir.

Mr. Tannenbaum. I think that I agree with Mr. Finley--

I think that Mrs. Burke's suggestion should be done both in

the report and in a formal briefing, I think as far as

our investigation is concerned, you can just look at the briefing

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memo which is now outside, and see the areas that

we really hit each of you can do that yourself. I am

prepared to do that and have something submitted to your

consideration to show you just what we are talking about

as far as a public briefing is concerned, because there

really are new areas thathave not been touched upon and that

Is really one thing that perhaps we ought to do,let the

people know what new areas are as well. I am looking

beyond really the members of the Congress but I think perhaps

the people should know what: the new areas are that we

are involved with.

As far as the proposals concerning the public

session, I re-emphasize something we stated about a week and

a half ago in the Capital room and that is that it is imper-

ative it seems to me that the briefing memorandum and

the substance of it be discussed with the leadership at the

earliest possible opportunity because,as we are all

well aware, if that is done, one would be hard-pressed

when seeing that memorandum and its' contents, to voate against

this. Comittee on substantive grounds. So I think that

as far as we are concerned, we can at a public session not

give up anything as far as investigate process will be if

indeed we are continued, we will not be giving up

anything and yet we will be able to outline the areas we

are interested in.

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The Chairman. I wonder if I could pose a question

to Mr. Fithian and to MI. Edgar for their response.

One of my major concerns here having ndeavored to

display to the Congress in the picture of disarray that they

had of the Coumittee, that the Conmittee is now performing

the function of a committee and rather that having our

feeling that we have made some--we have gained some ground

in that direction, the Congress now feels the Committee is

back where it ought go bein terms of the Chairmanship

and the Committee, that we refocus attention of the media on

Staff, whether it be Mr. Sprague or whether it be Tannenbaum

or lehner, that we are once again putting statements of

the Staffs, I wonder if we couldnt work this out in a way

where the. Committee in its report sets forth exactly what you

are talking about in terms of a public presentation but it

is coming from the committee in terms of developing what

has come to the Committee by way of investigation.

That the Committee at public session discuss their

report. (Mrs. Burke leaves.)

It would seem to me that you are putting the focus

where it ought to be rather than just on staff and being

in the position where the media once again runs away

with the Staff situation.

Mr. Fithian. I think we could do that in focus

on the Committee.

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I would like to have the corroborative strength

of our at least raising a question of Mr. Lehner and Mr.

Tannenbaun, you know, whether this Committee report we are

going with now is either accurate or whether that tells all

the unclassified part of the story, or in other words,

I think there should be some dialogue. I think it would

look a little artificial if we were just, I am not

sure, just thinking out loud, it would look a little artificial

if just discussing it among ourself--

MI: Edgar. Will the gentleman yield.

The Chairman. Mr. Edgar..

MI. Edgar. One way to handle that, I think the direction

to go would be to lave the two task force Chairmen, Mr. Faunt-

roy and Mr. Preyer, make the actual prepared report

statement, but I think that we ought to highlight the fact

that we do have two investigators who are working full time

on these two assassinations and perhaps as a result of.

their giving the statements, we then could turn to Mr.Tannen-

baum, Mr. Lehner and you know, clarify any questions

we have of the recpors that are made. I have no feeling

that that ceould be part of the choreography of the

meeting.

I feel very strongly that we need the public

direction.

MI. Fithian.

I like the idea. I like the idea

and would support it.

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The Chairman. Why don't we then, with this in mind,

have the staff work on the report, to see what we can come

up with in a few days. How long do you think you would'

need to work that up?

Mr. Sprague. Well, how about by Monday afternoon?

The Chairman. Is that agreeable to the Committee?

Mr. dodd. Yes, I would suggest that we be prepared

for like noon on Monday, if the thing with the Rules Committee

workout out, I would assume at that session--

Mr. Prier. Well, you could do that with the memorandum

you have got right now, couldn't you, that is a confidential

memorandum.

Mr. Dodd. Yes.

The Chairman. Yes we really want to give them the

Executive

material. We have that.

Mr. Edgar. Mr. Chairman, could we move on if that is

agreed that Monday they'would beethererandireceiverthet

report from the Staff on some of those other issues.

The

Chairman. Fine.

We need the resolution.

Mr Sprague. Mr. Wolf.

Mr. Dodd. Mr. Chairman.

The Chairman. Yes, Mr. Dodd.'

MI. Dodd. Have we finished our briefing? We have

still got a little more to do on that, have we not?

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Mr. Sprague.

That is right.

The Chairman. Yes, we do but I thought we would get ,

to this.

MI. Wolfe. This is preparedin the form, I guess, we

spoke of, Mr. Stokes, as a new resolution as opposed to either

restating HR 222 in hoc verba or amendin gHR 222. This is

in essence a short resolution that extends it for the

durationof the Congress and we have spokento the Parlia-

mentarian, Bill Brown about this. It was his view that

tht would be better to have a new resolution rather than

amend the old one.

He reviewed this this morning. That is why there

'is that penned in on page two, he suggested that as a

lead into that introductory sentence and just

section 2 st1ll basically of the resolution will require

the Committee to submit a final report because that

would not be in # Res. 222 just by extending it as it current-

ly is drafted.

:Section 3 makes H Res: 222 as an alternátive:provision

and applies to the Committee giving us subpoena power to

hold hearings and so on. Now, the last sentence has

been amended because under HR 222 the Committee does not

have authority to bring lawsuits in its own name, it

can require by subpoena or otherwise testimony but that

has been narrowly construed by Courts and for a variety

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of reasons, I think it is a good idea to include this language

although it certainly may add some controversy that you know

we could delete if it was being deemed politically necessary.

Fite reasons I think it should be included are for example

on litigation against the Executive Branch for access to

classified documents or whatever--technically if we issue

a subpoena, the Committee does, the Executive Branch determines

to not comply with that subpoena. The Committee, the Staff

of the Committee can then not take any action asárcommit-

tee against the Executive Branch, it must go to the U.S.

Attorney's office to procure a contempt of Congress.. Again

there may be a problem involved i the lititation

against the Executive if it involved either the Justice

Department or one of the intelligence agencies.

Other examples of the type where this would be neces-

sary are, for example, the suit that sealed the ring.

tapes that were made by the FBI, the District Court

ordered those tapes sealed for 50 years in the archives, I

belleve, about a month ago. Now the last provision

of that order says the only exception is if there is a

valid order of the Court ordering access to those tapes.

Well, the Committee does not have standing in the

current Resolution to go to Court and get a resolution

to the Court and get those tapes. The same would be true--

the statute restricts access to Grand Jury minutes

if you apply for order of the Court, you can have access

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and again the Committee would not have standing just by

the words to require by subpoena or otherwise. Another

important possible advantage to this is realistic ally, it

gives the Commitee a procedure that could procure contempt

of an order without going to the entire House. This

procedurally would arise, for example, by the issuance of a

subpoena if a motion to quash that subpoena was then •

filed, the Committee in that court could get a Court order

directing that it was a valid subpoena and directing

the parties to comply with that subpoena.

If the party then failed to comply with that subpoena,

they then could be found in contempt of that Court order which

held that it was a valid subpoena.

So, it would avoid the necessity, if it were desired,

of going to the Congress or the House for resolution of the

House to find someone in contempt for not complying

with a subpoena. And the Watergate, the Senate Watergate

Committee had these provisions, analogous provisions, not

this verbatim language.

Now, the other types of instaicis where, you know, this

type of language I think would be desirable is if you wanted

injunctive relief. For example, the rooming house in Memphis

is boarded up and there was some question a nongh of two

ago®

whether that was not going to be torn down for Urban

Renewal or other purposes. The Committee has no authority

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to prevent that for even one month or two months or just

youknow, to have a view of the scene of things of that

nature.

And again this just gives the authority of the

Committee to go to Court to bring lawsuits, defend lawsuits

or make applications to secure other information.

Mr. Fithian. Mr. Chairman.

The Chairman. Mr. Fithian.

Mr. Fithian. Is this unprecedented in the House?

Mr. Wolf. I do not know if it is unprecedented, if

it is, it would be my answer, I do bt know of another Committee

that had it. It arose because as. I said, the Senate

Watergate resolution I think that the most recent instance

of where the issue was focused and then Judge Sirica, after

they found that the Committee had authoitty to sue, then.

there is a separate question which may or may not come down

the line further which would be the jurisdiction of a

District Court to entertain these types of lawsuits.

Now, in the Senate Case, there is a jurisdictional

statute passed that is on the books, providing that for

Senate Committees but not House Committees the District

Courts now have jurisdiction and that was passed as a

direct outgrowth of the Senate Watergate Committee case. But

we would not need jurisdiction in all instances in the

District Court, because

this languge basically gives you

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authority to sue so it would be applicable to state

courts sometimes. of District Court suits perhaps not all --

• Mr. Fithian. I would be interested in either the

Chairman or. Judge Preyer's reaction to this. I find that

it is wholly new. terrain to me. but it may be that I am too

new around here.

MI. Preyer.. Yes, it is new to me, too,.

Did the Parliamentarian bring on this or did be?

Mr.. Wolf.. Yes he read it this morning. He said he

understands that certainly is a valid reason the Resolution

as drafted is questionable at best, whether it would have

that authority and it is a political decision whether you

want to in clude it. He understands the legal reasons

for including it and, as I say, he was the one that suggested

that kind of language just introducing that sentence to

make it clear that it relates back to HR 222 for

purposes of carrying out i REsolution 222.

MI. Preyer. Most people around here, when you

ask them what they think about a resolution! technical

aspects, they just say what does the Parliamentarian say,

and if he gives it.his blessing,: I would not think it

would: cause. any trouble.

But I am not: familiar with that, are you?

The Chairman. No, the only problem I see here,

Judge, is the interjection of anything new here gives--

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MI. Preyer. I hate to raise a new House issue

for the House or Brown: to quarrel about.

The Chairman. You recall before they raised phraseolo-

gy there--

Mr. Preyer. New powers and all.

The Chairman. The new powers, right.

Did Bill Brown seem to feel that--I assumed you

talked to Bill.

Mr. Wolf. Yes.

The Chairman. That, in the absence of this

provision that you have real serious legal difficulties

in terms of injunction relief.

Mr. Wolf. Yes.

The Chairman. And in other court procedures.

Mr. Wolf. He thought it would be doubtful, that is

right.

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Inpther words, it is not conclusive but the language,

specific language in our Resolution was construed by the

Supreme Court in 1928 in the Reed Case and they specifically

found that there was no authority to bring lawsuits just by

the language to require by subpoena or otherwise, evidence.

The Chairman. What was the analogous language in

the Watergate resolution?

Mr. Wolf. The Watergate resolution, I dont have

the specific language here, provides that they could require

by subpoena or order, and then they specifically made

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extensive reference to the Executive Branch because that:

is specifically what they were concerned with in the Water-

gate Resolution; orders detemrining that the Executive

Branch shall do the following.

The Chairman. Is there

reason why we chose

different language?

Mr. Wolf. I just thaught it was more concise. That

went on for almost a page, just about Executive Branch

Departments and then repeated the language, saying "or any other

person or persons.."

Mr. Fithian. • Mr. Chairman.

The Chairman. Mr? Fithian.

Mr. Fithian. I wonder if we might not be able to

incorporate if that sentence something the House is a

little more familiar with which is already in H. Res. 222 and

that is the subpoena power and just by language and grammati

cal construction could not we workinn, you know, to state

in addition to the subpoena power or as an extension of the

subpoena power the committee shall, in other words, somehow

tie it to something the House is very used to with subpoeras.

Mr. Wolf. It is a trifle difficult because this really

does not relate per se to the subpoena power because it is

an extension.

Mr. Fithian. As Franklin Roosevelt once said,

can't you just weave it in?

Mr. Wolf. Yes, we can try to make that clear but want

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to make clear that it is not a part of the Subpoena

power.

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MI. Dodd. Mr. Chairman.

The Chairman. MI. Dodd.

Mr. Dodd. Did the parliamentarian refer you to any other

instance-- you mentioned Watergate Committee, how about

the House Impeachment Panel.

Mr. Wolf. I do not believe they had this in but

I am not sure.

Mr. Dodd. Anyother precedent at all that you are

aware of.

Mr. Wolf. No. Like I said, in 1928 the Supreme Court

case just found, did not have authority absent something

like this and I do not believe the Committee went back

to get a further grant of authority.

Mr. Fithian. What kind of difficulties do we get

into if we do not have this in there and you get on

the way six months and decide that for whatever reason

you need this?

Mr. Wolf. THeonly difficulty is you have to go back

to the House.

Mr. Fichian. But I feel so much safer, once we

get beyond the reconstitution resolution.

Mr. Wolfe. Sure there is no problem just amending

that could always be done just amending the resolution

down the road to give you this power.

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The Chairman. Judge Preyer was just mentioning to

me that that it might be well for us to consider talking

to the Rules Committee counsel regarding this because he

shares with me my apprehension that once we open up a new

area for then, it just adds to our present problems.

Mx. Wolf. Certainly, we can paws this without that

and in the event we needed that, you know, four or five

months down the road, just introduce that as an amendment

and perhaps you would have a specific purpose as well.

The Chairman. Then

why don't we, as unanimouc consent,

strike this provision so we do not encounter this additional

difficulty?

MI Doda. I would, if you do not need a second

unanimous consent request but fotlow along your rule as

well, and check the Rules Committee counsel to find out

what you know, what the status would be in terms of a

new resolution coming up and what we have to do to handle t

but I agree with you, Mr. chairman.

The Chairman. All' right. Why don't you do that and

then give your report back to us at the next meeting?

Mr. Wolf: O.K. and the last section 4 just

makes 1t clear interim funding in HR 11 which by its

own terms, does expire. March 31, makes it clear no limitation

either express or implied in that would apply to the

Committee after the 3lst of Marci.

The Chairman. Did he feel that was necessary, too?

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Mr. Wolf. He thought it was not absolutely

necessary but because H. Res. 1l expires by its own terms,

on the other hand, he said without that the last sentence

of H.Res. 222 states that the provisions of H. Res. 11 shall

apply so there may be an implication even though H. Res. 11

doesnot apply, the restrictions detailed in there might by

implication, and he thought it was a good idea just to make

it explicitly clear he did not think any controversy--

but to make it clear after the 3lst,is off the books and

any implication regarding l' is off the books.

The Chairman. Any further questions?

All right, then you will report back at our next

meeting regarding this other aspect of it.

Mr. Sprague. Mr. Chairman.

The Chairman. Mr. Sprague.

MI. Sprague: If I may request some guidance from the

Committee going back to the report a moment, how does the

Committee want the matter of the problems that were

created after commencement as a result of thenimpediments

and the financial limitations and the problem of the

previous Chatrman, treated in this report?

The Chairman: Ignored, I would say, completely.

Mr: dodd. Benign neglect..

The Chairman. Yes.

That deplorable expression.

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Mr. Fithian. I am not sure we should not say that.

I would have to think about it, but we might want to consider

sayint something to the effect that for a period of time

we were denied access to the FBI's CIA materials or

soemthing like that. Although that comes to sound like

an apology for non-performance.

MI. Edgar. I do not know.

The Chairman. If the gentleman would yield to me, I

thinkiit is important when we meet with the rules

Committee, to at the outset recite for them the state in

which this Conmittee found itself up until a week ago when

the Committee began to try to function as a committee. Because

I think, it is important for them to realize that we had a

Staff here of investigators who were unable to investigate.

You had a staff unable to make telephone calls back to wit-

nesses who were proffering testimony to this Committee.

That you had a staff that was unable to travel anywhere to

investigate.

I think this is a part of what you have not done and

why you have not. And that they have taken it to a total ap-

praisal of where we are now.

MI. Dodd.. I will agree. I just thought I understood

in the questioning of Mr. Sprague referring to any reference

to the former chairman or why this occurred.

The Chairman. None of that.

Mr. Dodd. I would not want to see in the report at all-

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" 87

I think the membership of the House is fully aware

of the reasons and I think if we outline those reasons

as for the Staff's inability to perform at a hundred percent,

everyone knows why, I do not think we need to go into

the report to make any reference whatsoever to the former

Chairman's actions, our actions as a response to his actions

I just think we ought to leave that out of the report

entirely.

The Chairman. Sort of. as we discussed this morning

that the Committee, the-sense of the Conmittee was that

we report hearings that began:withithe present Chair's chair-

manship and sort of proceedin that same way as regards

the report.

Mr. Preyer. I agree that we never should mention any

names or some personalities but I wondered if we do not

at least want to make a point that things are different now

from the circus that was portrayed earlier and that we

are now proceeding in an orderly businesslike way--drop

the hint that the charges about being a circus, but these no

longer apply. That is one of the things we had to try to

combat that everybody is going off in different

directios but as a matter of fact, it was one person really

going off in different directions but I think that atmos-

phere of a circustis one of the hard things we have had to

try to kick and. I do ot think: there is anything wrong with

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suggesting. that we have that behind us now and that we

are. proceeding. in an orderly way.

Maybe we can be a little sublte about why it is

behind us now but I think we should give some sense that

things are changed.

The Chairman. In the report.

Mr. Preyer. Doing it diplomatically, that is

all.

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MI. Dodd. If the gentleman would yield. I would be

interested in seeing language, I would just be concerned

that in trying to be sübtle--some members of the House are

very sensitive to this chairmanship role and--

Mr. Preyer. I am afraid I am going to have to leave,

Mr. Chairman.

The Chairman. All right.

There is nothing further then on Mr. Sprague's question

so we will turn to the matter of--well, there are two

things, one Mr. Sprague would be further briefing by you

regarding yesterday's hearing. Secondly, I understand

you have some additional data to bring to our attention

regarding both investigations through Mr. Ta-nenbaum and

Mr: Lehner, right.

a.r7

MI. Sprague. That is correct.

The Chairman: And since one of the matters is only

presented by you in the absence 6 the Staff; I suppose we

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will proceed then with the Lehner-Tannenbaum presentations.

Mr. Sprague. Fine.

The Chairman. Is that O.K?

Fine, you may proceed.

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allegedly Oswald was and fired the shots.

She has indicated to us that approximately two weeks

prior to the assassination, while she was working in another

club, not. Jack Ruby's club but another club, she went to Jack

Ruby's Club and there she was introduced by Ruby to one "Lee

Harvey Oswald" of the CIA"' using Ruby's words. She didn't

know what the letters "CIA" meant, and the next she saw Oswald

was when he was arrested on television.

She has indicated that there were other people present,

one of whom spoke about this event' shortly after the investi-

gation, after Oswald became a well-known, notorious figure.

This woman suddenly disappeared. Accordingly, our

witness: decided it would be in her best interests not to

say anything. She, in a very real sense, has found religion;

she is married to an evangelist now and she is willing to come

forward. She also will state, as she has stated to our people

who were out in Dallas, that approximately two days after the

assassination two men came to her; one identified himself as

a FBI person; the other as a CIA person, and asked for her

film. She gave these two men her film, and she has never

seen that film since:

Her film, of course, could be crucial, in that she was

taking photographs of the President's car at the time the

shots were fired, and it would show possibly, if indeed the

film were developed, portions of the Grassy Knoll and possibly

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some of the depository. So that is an area that we really

have to get involved in and further investigate.

We have also been able to develop some infornation

from a woman who is the head nurse at Parkland Hospital

who was present when Governor Connally was being operated on,

and had indicated that approximately four to five pieces of

fragments were removed from the governor's

body.. If indeed

that is the case, and we are able to track down those frag-

ments, we would, of course, have to corduct scientific

analysis on them, possibly neutronic relation tests, and others,

to determine whether or not, first, the fragments came from

the same bullet; secondly, and most importantly, whether or

not these fragments weigh more than that one bullet that

allegedly went through the President's body from his back,

according to the Warren Commission, and then went through and

wounded the governor in five different places, that is, from

the right rear shoulder, entry out the right armpit into the

left side, right side of his body, and out the right breast

and lodging, according to the Warren Commission's finding, in

his left thigh.

So that bullet, as. I am sure you know, as was indicated

previously, in what as been referred to as in a "pristine

condition", that is, it is virtually unscathed. If the four

or five fragments in fact were taken out and if we can show -

if we can locate them -- that they weigh more than that

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103

portion that is missing from that bullet, then the very corner

stone and basis of the entire Warren Commission Report is no

longer valid.

So these two areas are very significant. We have just

come up with them from people whom we have in Dallas. They have

just returned last night.

We have also had a gentleman come to us, whom I have

been in contact with, a member of the media from Holland.

His name is Wilhelm Altman. He will be assigned to

cover the assassination by The Netherlands media, and he !?

befriended a fellow who looms in the shadows of this whole

investigation. His name is George De Mohrenschild.

Mr. Fauntroy. George?

Mr. Tanenbaum. De Mohrenschild, D-e M-o-h-r-e-n-s-c-

h-i-1-d. This fellow recently contacted Altman and they have

been in communication for years, approximately 1l years.

Then there is correspondence between the two gentlemen

to support this.

In any event, Mr. DeMohrenschild was visited by. !;

Mr, Altman several weeks ago and he went with Mr. Altman to

The Netherlands. The purpose of his trip was to divulge

for the first time his knowledge of the assassination of the

President, and he indicated that he was responsible for

Oswald's activity, and that there were others involved who were

involved in the actual shooting of the President.

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This fellow, Mr. De Mohrenschild, in The Netherlands,

was negotiating for book rights as well as TV presentation,

and I imagine any other way he could possibly cash in on this

kind of sensational information.

What is significant, of course, other than the fact that

there is a confession here, is that George De Mohrenschild

is one person, as I have said -- I really have to underscore

this -- who is involved with Lee Harvey Oswald as a part of

history; that is, he befriended Oswald and had his daughter

carefoo: Oswald's wife and child while Oswald was living at

a YMCA in Texas; so he is a person that is not a John Doe, who

is coming forward, giving a confession to someone in the media.

He is someone who has been looked at by researchers

for the last 13 years, and people have pointed a finger at

him all the time.

Unfortunately for us, at this stage he presently is mis-

sing. He left The Netherlands during the negotiations and has

not been heard of since. I just wanted you to know that,

because the media in Europe

is carrying the story that has

been given out by Mr. Altman.

We have indicated to him that his information indeed

was new, sensitive and unique and required further investi-

gation, which, in fact, it does.

Lastly, let me. comment just on Mr. Trafficante and

others of his ilk. The other areas that are associated with

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105

Mr. Trafficante, as far as the organized crime aspect of this

investigation is concerned, go into New Orleans with a fellow

by the name of Carlos Marcello who is the alleged leader in

that city. There is

one significant tie as far as that is

concerned, and that is that there was a person taken into

custody into custody in the Dallex Building, which is right

next to the Texas Schoolbook Depository - and, parenthetically,

let me note, as

to that building, that a shot fired from that

building is consistent with the bullet impact mark that was

found on the sidewalk on Elm Street.

There was a fellow taken into custody in that building

by the name of Jim Brady, whese real name is Eugene Hale Braden.

He hass a criminal record. He was taken into custody in that

building immediately after the assassination. He was wandering

around on the second and third floors, and he indicated he was

trying to call his wife and tell her about the assassination.

He was taken into custody and let go.

Braden worked for Marcello in a building in New Orleans,

in Suite No. 1706, casTInrecall; and in Suite No. 1701, and

whether or not 1706 - 1706 where David was or 1701 -- David

Ferry was working out of - they are adjacent to each other.

I mention this because of the tie-ins that have been

made between Ferry and Shaw and Oswald. •

We are in the process of getting the trial transcript -

portions of the trial transcript because of

economies. We

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would like to, and hopefully will, get the entire transcript

of the Shaw trial.

There are individuals in an area in Clinton, Louisiana,

from all walks of life, who put Oswald and Shaw and Ferry and

these people alictogether with anti-Castro Cuban groups.

Now, there is a whole area here, obviously, and witnesses

who have to be called, namely, Marcello and Mr. Braden and

others, concerning this investigation.

So that is really where we are right now. We have just

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begun.

Lastlys assfar as the autopsy is concerned, we have

information that a person who is now a doctor, who was a

resident at the time in Parkland Hospital, noticed wounds on

the governor's body that appeared to be somewhat inconsistent

with the official reporting of what happened. We have not

heard from him, but his friend has come forward and told us.

about this; and we have this person's name and telephone

number.

He, also, according to his friend, who is a lawyer,

indicates that is, this resident - that he was barred from

seeing the President's body by certain security people, which

by his experience he deemed to be quite unusual, I am sure. •

There is just one other question.. On his observation

of the governor's body; it was his impression that there were

entry wounds on the governor's body; there was an entry wound

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on the governor's body, and this, again, is someone we have

to dispatch people to speak with, so that we could really

run this down properly.

I also just want to correct the record. For purposes of

the record, we spoke with Mr. MeBe whom I mentioned at our

last briefing. He, I am glad to report to you all; does not

have cancer, which I mentioned. That was a piece of misinfor-

mation we had. So, fortunately for him, he is not suffering

from any terminal disease; however, I report to you that our

people who spoke with Mr. MeBee indicated that he is

wavering on his identification of Oswald.

We are still pursuing that. We will be pursuing the other

people who were at the meeting between this woman, Jack Ruby

and Lee Harvey Oswald.

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Mr. Fauntroy Mr. Chairman?

Mr. Preyer. Mr. Fauntroy?

Mr. Fauntroy. I just have two questions. With respect

to the whereabouts of Mi. DeMohren Schildt, you say?

Mr. Tanenbaum. Yes, sir.

Mr. Fantroy. Given our projected staff capability, do

we have any capacity to try to find him?

Mr. Tanenbaum. . Presently?

Mr. Fauntroy. Yes, given the 115 figure.

Mr. Tanenbaum. The answer to your question is simply

yes. I think, given that figure, it will be very difficult;

I think we have a chance of finding him.

Mr. Fauntroy. Second, Mr. Chairman, with respect to

both this report and the King report, can you give us an idea

of what a work program in both cases over the next two months

might consist of, in terms of specific investigative activity?

Mr. Tanenbaum. I think, as Mr. Sprague has indicated,

what we have to do now --

Mr. Fauntroy. Have you gone over this for the record?

Mx. Sprague. I think only to restate my basic premise,

we have got to start from the beginning, find out what occur-

red, what led up to that, and what occurred since.

Mr. Tanenbaum.

I can just give you the specifics, very

briefly.

Mr. Fauntroy. Okay.

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109

MI. Tanenbaum. And that would be really to identify all

the people who were present at Dealy Plaza, all those indi-

viduals who were in the motorcade, those people who we can.

deen as specators, all official personnel, then determine the

present whereabouts, any and all previous statements made

by all of these people, as well as those in officialdom and

those who went into the book depository, and move chronologi-

cally.

We then in conjunction with that have to go over all of

the documents that are available to us, both in a declassified

manner and classified, that are presently in the possession

of the Secret Service, FBI and the Central Intelligence Agency,

and I would add the Department of State and all intelligence

agencies as

well as the State of Texas, any law enforcement

agencies who conducted any investigation with regard to this

case.

• •

That would be what we would be doing, and I dare say

that might be taking longer than two months..

MI. Fauntroy. In the meantime, would you have people

working on the Brady and Marcello and other matters?

Mr. Tanenbaum. Yes, absolutely. In that regard,

Mr. Fauntroy, I keep neglecting to mention but it is so

self evident that what we have to be involved with are the

very beginnings of the investigation.

of course it is what happened in Dallas, and then the

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autopsy, all of the evidence and all of the chain of custody

and all of the people who were present in Parkland Hospital,

from nurses, doctors, media people, security people, the

transport teams that took the President to Air Force One,

and then the trail of the President to Bethesda and ultimately

to the mortuary. Everybody who was present at that autopsy,

long and detailed discussions with Commander. Humes, who

actually performed the autopsy.

As you know, for some reason he destroyed his originai

notes, and the questions of why were never put to him by the

Commission. That, of course, is all part and parcel of what

we are talking about when you asked about the first two months.

Mr. Fauntroy. Sure.

Mr. Tanenbaum.

So I think that really that goes beyond

the twolmonth period.

Mr. Sprague. Mr. Fauntroy, I would respond on that. I

think it is important that it be understood that when I keep

talking about investigating from the beginning, I also think

though that in this investigation we must at the same time, as

we are doing that basic methodical approach, however, be able

to handle new things that come to our attention.

Now, I don't think, for example, on this Mr. De Mohrenschildt

thing that we just sit back and be methodically proceeding and

just set something like that aside for six months, saying

we

will get to it. Part of the needs that exist when we talk about

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staff is not only the ability to be doing the basic work, but

we have to, on new leads coming in, be able to have units of

manpower to be able to also work on the new leads.

I don't think we can just put them aside.

Mr. Lehner. I think in just a minute I could answer your

question, as far as the king part. We have the rifle and

bullet, obviously, now in our custody. I have been in touch

with an expert who I know to be an excellent ballistics expert,

a Mr. Alfred Johnson, who is now with the Alchohol, Tobacco

and Firearms Division of the Treasury. He has consented to test

fire the gun, to compare the ballistics evidence that we have,

including the

test firings that we do have in our possession,

and to report to us.

I have been in touch with his superior, and that has been

cleared for him to do that work. I intend to ask Mr. Kirshaw

if he will supply us with the name of an expert that he wishes

to do that same examination. We will research that person.

If he is a true expert, we would be very happy to have him

present during the test firings as well as maybe a third

expert that we are now looking to.

In our recent trip to Memphis this past Thursday through

Saturday we xeroxed some of the Memphis District Attorney's

Office file, and we are working on that, the specific areas,

the Canadian area, the use of aliases, the Birmigham question

of safety deposit box and the question of renewing his lost

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