The Truth about Arlen Specter

by Mark Tracy

ARLEN SPECTER AND THE JFK ASSASSINATION

The Single Bullet Theory

To support the scenario that a lone assassin (Oswald) could fire the purported number of shots within an allotted time frame, the Warren Commission concluded that one of the bullets fired that fateful day hit both President Kennedy and Texas Governor John Connally.  This conclusion came to be known as the "single bullet theory."  However, given the location of Kennedy's and Connally's wounds, for the "single bullet theory" to be correct, the bullet would have had to change course several times, behaving in the manner shown in the diagram (below left).

The chief architect of the "single bullet theory" was the Warren Commission's ambitious junior counsel, Arlen Specter, now U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania.  In the reenactment photo (below right) Specter, with his pointer in hand, attempts to make the "single bullet theory" appear plausible by deceptively indicating a straight line trajectory for the bullet.  

While Specter managed to sell his "single bullet theory" to a majority of the 7 member Warren Commission (4 members concurred, 3 members dissented), he had trouble selling it to a majority of the public.  A 2001 Gallup poll found that 81 percent of Americans reject the Warren Commission's conclusions.

For a list of Arlen Specter's other deceptions regarding the assassination click here: Fetzer (compiled by researcher, James Fetzer).

Testimony of an Eyewitness

"The FBI took me to Parkland Hospital.  I had no idea what I was doing there.  They escorted me through a labyrinth of corridors and up to one of the top floors of Parkland.  I didn't know where we were.  They took me into this little room where I met Arlen Specter.  He talked to me for a few minutes, trying to act real friendly, then this woman, a stenographer, came in and sat behind me.  He had told me that this interview would be confidential, then I looked around and this woman was taking notes.  I reminded him that the discussion was to be private and he told the woman to put down her notebook, which she did.  But when I looked around again she was writing.  I got mad and told Specter, 'You lied to me.  I want this over.'  He asked me why I wouldn't come to Washington, and I said, 'Because I want to stay alive.'  He asked why I would think that I was in danger and I replied, 'Well, if they can kill the President, they can certainly get me!'  He replied that they already had the man that did it and I told him, 'No, you don't!'  

He kept trying to get me to change my story, particularly regarding the number of shots.  He said I had been told how many shots there were and I figured he was talking about what the Secret Service told me right after the assassination.  His inflection and attitude was that I knew what I was supposed to be saying, why wouldn't I just say it.  I asked him, 'Look, do you want the truth or just what you want me to say?'  He said he wanted the truth, so I said, 'The truth is that I heard between four and six shots.'  I told him, 'I'm not going to lie for you.'  So he starts talking off the record.  He told me about my life, my family, and even mentioned that my marriage was in trouble.  I said, 'What's the point of interviewing me if you already know everything about me?'  He got angrier and finally told me, 'Look, we can even make you look as crazy as Marguerite Oswald [Lee Oswald's mother] and everybody knows how crazy she is.  We could have you put in a mental institution if you don't cooperate with us.'  I knew he was trying to intimidate me.... 

He finally gave me his word that the interview would not be published unless I approved what was written.  But they never gave me the chance to read it or approve it.  When I finally read my testimony as published by the Warren Commission, I knew it was a fabrication from the first line.  After that ordeal at Parkland Hospital, they wrote that my deposition was taken at the U.S. attorney's office in the Post Office Building."

ARLEN SPECTER QUESTIONS ANITA HILL

In her book, Speaking Truth to Power, Anita Hill tells of her experience with Arlen Specter during the Senate confirmation hearings for Judge Thomas:

"Specter began by assuring me that he was simply trying 'to find out what happened.'  Nevertheless, in short order, any hope that Senator Specter would transcend the political was dashed.  He began his questioning with an unmistakably prosecutorial tone.  He used a familiar cross-examination tactic--a tactic common in sexual harassment cases.  He ridiculed my reaction to Thomas' behavior, suggesting that I was being oversensitive, even to the point of misrepresenting my testimony....

The tension between Senator Specter and me was measurable.  The process seemed to break down completely.  Senator Specter would repeat the same questions until he got the answer he wanted....  To the press and spectators, we must have sounded silly and ill tempered.  More than one sigh erupted from the seats behind me as Specter returned to the questioning and I once more gave my explanation.  Clearly, neither of us would budge from our position.

Something in the back of my head said, 'Just say what he wants you say and get on with it.'  But I was much too stubborn to do that.  And the more he pursued it, the more inclined I was to resist.  Digging in was, perhaps, for me one way of hanging on to some amount of my dignity.  By now I knew that his questions were both insincere and ill informed.  Though I tried to answer him, I was equally determined that the senator not put words in my mouth.

With every question he asked, it became clearer that despite any declaration to the contrary, he viewed me as an adversary.  Rather than seeking to elicit information, his questioning sought to elicit a conclusion that he had reached before the hearing began."

The Truth about Arlen Specter
Copyright 2004 by Mark Tracy

"[Robert] Tannenbaum said the JFK assassination is a rare example of a murder that was captured on film.  But he said this is an area where dishonesty creeps into the official story.  'You see things, but are told that's not what you really see ... the President is hit in the head, and it goes backwards.  I don't have to get a degree from Yale to figure it out -- if a guy's head goes backwards, it probably means someone hit him from the front!'" --John Kelin, "New Evidence from the Files", Fair Play magazine, October 1995

"There were either two or three people involved, or more, in this -- or someone was shooting with an automatic rifle." --Texas Governor John Connally, testimony to the Warren Commission, W.C. Hearings, vol. IV, p. 133. (Connally was seated in front of John F. Kennedy in the presidential limousine and was wounded by gunfire.)

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