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  » Volume XV
Warren Commission Hearings: Vol. XV - Page 730« Previous | Next »

(Testimony of Prof. Revilo Pendleton Oliver)

Mr. Oliver.
You are correct about that. The nature of the event that would create this shock was, of course, necessarily speculative.
Mr. Jenner.
All right. Then you discuss the feeling of men like you, that there was some crisis about to take place, and this feeling was communicated to you by men like Colonel Clark and others ? Mr. OLIVER. Yes.
Mr. Jenner.
Who felt that the Communist conspiracy as you call it had reached

a point at which it needed some shocking event.
Mr. Oliver.
That is right.
Mr. Jenner.
Or as you say at the bottom of page 21 and the top of page 22, "The conspiracy's schedule called for a major incident to create a national shock before Thanksgiving."
Mr. Oliver.
Yes.
Mr. Jenner.
At the bottom of page 22, right-hand column, you say: "In summary then, there is not a single indication that the conspiracy did not plan and carry out the assassination of President Kennedy. On the other hand, there is evidence which very strongly suggests that it did."
Would you please relate what evidence there was at the time you published the article which "very strongly suggests that it did."
Mr. Oliver.
You begin with the fact that the assassin was a Communist and added the strong probability, in my judgment, that he must have had accomplices, very, very probably including Rubenstein.
Then the results which would have occurred but for the mischance of Oswald's apprehension would have been very strongly in their favor. It is the old doctrine of Sui Bono. In substance the considerations that I have stated in the earlier part of the article indicating that (a) there undoubtedly was Communist participation and (b) that the act was to their advantage.
Mr. Jenner.
Here again then I take it that your use of the word "evidence" in the portion I have quoted from your paper, at the bottom of the right-hand column of page 22 is the use of the word in the loose sense or the broad sense.
Mr. Oliver.
That is right.
Mr. Jenner.
The broad sense meaning deductions from the sources you have

indicated in your testimony?
Mr. Oliver.
That is right.
Mr. Jenner.
Would you glance at page 23 with a view in mind of my inquiring of you as to whether the statements made on that page likewise are deductions based on the sources you have indicated heretofore in your testimony ?
Mr. Oliver.
That is right.
Mr. Jenner.
Is that likewise true of page 24 ?
Mr. Oliver.
Yes.
Mr. Jenner.
At the bottom of page 24, the right-hand column you say:
"The first expedient was primarily defensive. In a hasty and thus far successful attempt to thwart an investigation by legally constituted authorities, the Senate Subcommittee on Internal Security and the attorney general of the State of Texas, both of whom had already announced their determination to conduct an impartial inquiry, an illegal and unconstitutional 'special commission' was improvised with the obvious hope that it could be turned into a Soviet-style Kangaroo court. The best known members of this packed 'commission'," and then you give some vignettes of the various members of the commission.
I am not seeking to probe into your thinking on the subject. You have a right to think whatever you do think, and the right of free speech and publication permits you to publish. As I told Mr. Unger yesterday I was seeking only sources What is the source of that statement?
Mr. Unger.
Pardon me, just a minute for interjecting but what relevancy does that have on the inquiry into the death of either President Kennedy or---
Mr. Jenner.
It has this relevancy. The doctor is implying in the statement I have quoted that the creation of the Commission was part of a conspiracy, as he puts it, to prevent effective investigation into the-assassination of the President by the Senate Subcommittee on Internal Security and the attorney general of the State of Texas, with the appointment of a commission.
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