May it please the court. Gentlemen of the jury. I know
you're very tired. You've been very patient. This final day has been a long
one, so I'll speak only a few minutes. In his argument, Mr. Dymond posed one
final issue which raises the question of what we do when the need for justice
is confronted by power. So, let me talk to you about the question of whether or
not there was government fraud in this case--a question Mr. Dymond seems to
want us to answer. A government is a great deal like a human being. It's not
necessarily all good, and it's not necessarily all bad. We live in a good
country. I love it and you do too. Nevertheless, the fact remains that we have
a government which is not perfect.
There have been indications since November the 22nd of
1963--and that was not the last indication--that there is excessive power in
some parts of our government. It is plain that the people have not received all
of the truth about some of the things which have happened, about some of the
assassinations which have occurred--and more particularly about the
assassination of John Kennedy.
Going back to when we were children, I think most of
us--probably all of us here in the courtroom--once thought that justice came
into being of its own accord, that virtue was its own reward, that good would
triumph over evil--in short, that justice occurred automatically. Later, when
we found that this wasn't quite so, most of us still felt hopefully that at
least justice occurred frequently of its own accord.
Today, I think that almost all of us would have to agree
that there is really no machinery--not on this Earth at least--which causes
justice to occur automatically. Men have to make it occur. Individual human
beings have to make it occur. Otherwise, it doesn't come into existence. This
is not always easy. As a matter of fact, it's always hard, because justice
presents a threat to power. In order to make justice come into being, you often
have to fight power.
Mr. Dymond raised the question: Why don't we say it's all a
fraud and charge the government with fraud, if this is the case? Let me be
explicit, then, and make myself very clear on this point.
The government's handling of the investigation of John
Kennedy's murder was a fraud. It was the greatest fraud in the history of our
country. It probably was the greatest fraud ever perpetrated in the history of
humankind. That doesn't mean that we have to accept the continued existence of
the kind of government which allows this to happen. We can do something about
it. We're forced either to leave this country or to accept the authoritarianism
that has developed--the authoritarianism which tells us that in the year 2029
we can see the evidence about what happened to John Kennedy.
Government does not consist only of secret police and
domestic espionage operations and generals and admirals--government consists of
people. It also consists of juries. And cases of murder--whether of the poorest
individual or the most distinguished citizen in the land--should be looked at
openly in a court of law, where juries can pass on them and not be hidden, not
be buried like the body of the victim beneath concrete for countless years.
You men in these recent weeks have heard witnesses that no
one else in the world has heard. You've seen the Zapruder film. You've seen
what happened to your President. I suggest to you that you know right now that,
in that area at least, a fraud has been perpetrated.
That does not mean that our government is entirely bad; and
I want to emphasize that. It does mean, however, that in recent years, through
the development of excessive power because of the Cold War, forces have
developed in our government over which there is no control and these forces
have an authoritarian approach to justice--meaning, they will let you know what
justice is.
Well, my reply to them is that we already know what justice
is. It is the decision of the people passing on the evidence. It is the jury
system. In this issue which is posed by the government's conduct in concealing
the evidence in this case--in the issue of humanity as opposed to power--I have
chosen humanity, and I will do it again without any hesitation. I hope every
one of you will do the same. I do this because I love my country and because I
want to communicate to the government that we will not accept unexplained
assassinations with the casual information that if we live seventy-five years
longer, we might be given more evidence.
In this particular case, massive power was brought to bear
to prevent justice from ever coming into this courtroom. The power to make
authoritive pronouncements, the power to manipulate the news media by the
release of false information, the power to interfere with an honest inquiry and
the power to provide an endless variety of experts to testify in behalf of
power, repeatedly was demonstrated in this case.
The American people have yet to see the Zapruder film. Why?
The American people have yet to see and hear from the real witnesses to the
assassination. Why? Because, today in America too much emphasis is given to
secrecy, with regard to the assassination of our President, and not enough
emphasis is given to the question of justice and to the question of humanity.
These dignified deceptions will not suffice. We have had
enough of power without truth. We don't have to accept power without truth or
else leave the country. I don't accept either of these two alternatives. I
don't intend to leave the country and I don't intend to accept power without
truth.
I intend to fight for the truth. I suggest that not only is
this not un-American, but it is the most American thing we can do--because if
the truth does not endure, then our country will not endure.
In our country the worst of all crimes occurs when the
government murders truth. If it can murder truth, it can murder freedom. If it
can murder freedom, it can murder your own sons--if they should dare to fight
for freedom-- and then it can announce that they were killed in an industrial
accident, or shot by the "enemy" or God knows what.
In this case, finally, it has been possible to bring the
truth about the assassination into a court of law--not before a commission
composed of important and powerful and politically astute men, but before a
jury of citizens.
Now, I suggest to you that yours is a hard duty, because in
a sense what you're passing on is equivalent to a murder case. The difficult
thing about passing on a murder case is that the victim is out of your sight
and buried a long distance away, and all you can see is the defendant. It's
very difficult to identify with someone you can't see, and sometimes it's hard
not to identify to some extent with the defendant and his problems.
In that regard, every prosecutor who is at all humane is
conscious of feeling sorry for the defendant in every case he prosecutes. But
he is not free to forget the victim who lies buried out of sight. I suggest to
you that, if you do your duty, you also are not free to forget the victim who
is buried out of sight.
You know, Tennyson once said that, "authority forgets a
dying king." This was never more true than in the murder of John Kennedy.
The strange and deceptive conduct of the government after his murder began
while his body was warm, and has continued for five years. You have seen in
this courtroom indications of the interest of part of the government power
structure in keeping the truth down, in keeping the grave closed.
We presented a number of eyewitnesses as well as an expert
witness as well as the Zapruder film, to show that the fatal wound of the
President came from the front. A plane landed from Washington and out stepped
Dr. Finck for the defense, to counter the clear and apparent evidence of a shot
from the front. I don't have to go into Dr. Finck's testimony in detail for you
to show that it simply did not correspond with the facts. He admitted that he
did not complete the autopsy because a general told him not to complete the
autopsy.
In this conflict between power and justice--to put it that
way--just where do you think Dr. Finck stands? A general, who was not a
pathologist, told him not to complete the autopsy, so he didn't complete it.
This is not the way I want my country to be. When our President is killed he
deserves the kind of autopsy that the ordinary citizen gets every day in the
State of Louisiana. And the people deserve the facts about it. We can't have
government power suddenly interjecting itself and preventing the truth form
coming to the people.
Yet in this case, before the sun rose the next morning,
power had moved into the situation and the truth was being concealed. And now,
five years later in this courtroom the power of the government in concealing
the truth is continuing in the same way.
We presented eyewitnesses who told you of the shots coming
from the grassy knoll. A plane landed from Washington, and out came ballistics
expert Frazier for the defense. Mr. Frazier's explanation of the sound of the
shots coming from the front, which was heard by eyewitness after eyewitness,
was that Lee Oswald created a sonic boom in his firing. Not only did Oswald
break all of the world's records for marksmanship, but he broke the sound
barrier as well.
I suggest to you, that if any of you have shot on a firing
range--and most of you probably have in the service--you were shooting rifles
in which the bullet traveled faster than the speed of sound. I ask you to
recall if you ever heard a sonic boom. If you remember when you were on the
firing line, and they would say, "Ready on the left; ready on the right;
ready on the firing line; commence firing," you heard the shots coming
from the firing line--to the left of you and to the right of you. If you had
heard, as a result of Frazier's fictional sonic boom, firing coming at you from
the pits, you would have had a reaction which you would still remember.
Mr. Frazier's sonic boom simply doesn't exist. It's part of
the fraud-- a part of the continuing government fraud.
The best way to make this country the kind of country it's
supposed to be is to communicate to the government that no matter how powerful
it may be, we do not accept these frauds. We do not accept these false
announcements. We do not accept the concealment of evidence with regard to the
murder of President Kennedy. Who is the most believable: a Richard Randolph
Carr, seated here in a wheelchair and telling you what he saw and what he heard
and how he was told to shut his mouth--or Mr. Frazier with his sonic booms? Do
we really have to reject Mr. Newman and Mrs. Newman and Mr. Carr and Roger
Craig and the testimony of all those honest witnesses--reject all this and
accept the fraudulent Warren Commission, or else leave the country?
I suggest to you that there are other alternatives. One of
them has been put in practice in the last month in the State of Louisiana--and
that is to bring out the truth in a proceeding where attorneys can
cross-examine, where the defendant can be confronted by testimony against him,
where the rules of evidence are applied and where a jury of citizens can pass
on it--and where there is no government secrecy. Above all, where you do not
have evidence concealed for seventy-five years in the name of "national
security."
All we have in this case are the facts--facts which show
that the defendant participated in the conspiracy to kill the President and
that the President was subsequently killed in an ambush.
The reply of the defense has been the same as the early
reply of the government in the Warren Commission. It has been authority,
authority, authority. The President's seal outside of each volume of the Warren
Commission Report--made necessary because there is nothing inside these
volumes, only men of high position and prestige sitting on a Board, and
announcing the results to you, but not telling you what the evidence is,
because the evidence has to be hidden for seventy-five years.
You heard in this courtroom in recent weeks, eyewitness
after eyewitness after eyewitness and, above all, you saw one eyewitness which
was indifferent to power--the Zapruder film. The lens of the camera is totally
indifferent to power and it tells what happened as it saw it happen--and that
is one of the reasons 200 million Americans have not seen the Zapruder film.
They should have seen it many times. They should know exactly what happened.
They all should know what you know now. Why hasn't all of this come into being
if there hasn't been government fraud? Of course there has been fraud by the
government.
But I'm telling you now that I think we can do something
about it. I think that there are still enough Americans left in this country to
make it continue to be America. I think that we can still fight
authoritarianism--the government's insistence on secrecy, government force used
in counterattacks against an honest inquiry--and when we do that, we're not
being un-American, we're being American. It isn't easy. You're sticking your
neck out in a rather permanent way, but it has to be done because truth does not
come into being automatically. Individual men, like the members of my staff
here, have to work and fight to make it happen--and individual men like you
have to make justice come into being because otherwise is doesn't happen.
What I'm trying to tell you is that there are forces in
America today, unfortunately, which are not in favor of the truth coming out
about John Kennedy's assassination. As long as our government continues to be
like this, as long as such forces can get away with such actions, then this is
no longer the country in which we were born.
The murder of John Kennedy was probably the most terrible
moment in the history of our country. Yet, circumstances have placed you in the
position where not only have you seen the hidden evidence but you are actually
going to have the opportunity to bring justice into the picture for the first
time.
Now, you are here sitting in judgment on Clay Shaw. Yet you,
as men, represent more than jurors in an ordinary case because of the victim in
this case. You represent, in a sense, the hope of humanity against government
power. You represent humanity, which yet may triumph over excessive government
power-- if you will cause it to be so, in the course of doing your duty in this
case.
I suggest that you ask not what your country can do for you
but what you can do for your country.
What can you do for your country? You can cause justice to
happen for the first time in this matter. You can help make our country better
by showing that this is still a government of the people. And if you do that,
as long as you live, nothing will ever be more important.
