I implore you—I implore you, in the name of justice, to let my son, Lee Harvey Oswald, who is accused of assassinating the President, and I, the mother of this man, who is the accused's mother, be represented by counsel.
We have information pertinent to this case.
My daughter-in-law is the only one who has testified.
The things that came out in the paper—I know, I have documents. I am not asking you to believe me as a mother. I can prove the statements that I say.
And I believe in this way you will have a true picture, and a much better picture, because as you are going along you will be having both sides, and won't have to wait to analyze the situation in the end, as the testimony is being given by each individual, right then and there—you will have the other party's testimony.
Now, there is another——
The Chairman. Before you leave that, Mrs. Oswald, may I say to you, first, that the Commission is not here to prosecute your dead son. It is not here and it was not established to prosecute anyone.
It is the purpose and the province of the Commission to obtain all the facts that it can obtain, and then make an impartial report—not as a prosecutor, but as an impartial Commission—on the manner in which the President came to his death.
We are trying to recognize the individual rights of all persons who are called before the Commission, to let them have their lawyers, and let their lawyers have an opportunity to examine them, as well as the Commission.
You may be sure that if Mr. Lane has any evidence of his own knowledge, or has any accumulation of affidavits from others, to the effect—to any effect, concerning this trial, that he will have an opportunity to come here, just as you are here, in order to present those to the Commission.
But so far as his being here at all times before the Commission to cross-examine or to be present when all witnesses are testifying—that is not in accordance with the procedures of the Commission.
But I assure you that if Mr. Lane has any evidence of any kind bearing upon the assassination of the President, he will be accorded the same opportunity that you have to come here and present them, and we will give him an opportunity in his own way to tell his story, and present his own evidence. And should he want counsel, he may have counsel, also.
Now, you may go to your second point.
Mrs. Oswald. No, I am not finished with my first, please.
I appreciate and I understand exactly what you have told me, Chief Justice Warren.
But there is one thing—and, of course, I will have to accept your decision, and will be most happy to have Mr. Lane present his testimony the way you have suggested.
However, I am not in agreement with you. One point I want to make clear.
We do not know the questions that you are asking of myself or Marina or the other witnesses. And I contend that you cannot ask them the pertinent questions because you don't know what I know, and what Mr. Lane knows. And so you will still have an analysis in the long run, a conclusion.
I am going to go back to Marina. As I say, Marina made her statements——
The Chairman. On that particular thing, may I say this: It is true that we don't know how to examine you at the present time because we don't know what you have to present to this Commission. But we are affording you the opportunity before we ask you any questions to tell your story, in your own way.
Then we should know what questions we want to ask of you.
Mrs. Oswald. Yes, sir; I understand that thoroughly.
But I am a human being, going through a life story from childhood, and I may forget something that my counsel would know. And that applies to witnesses. They may forget to testify something that my counsel has facts on. I will have to accept your verdict, but I don't do it graciously.
I want that for record.
The Chairman. Yes. Well, that is all right, Mrs. Oswald. You may state that for the record.
Mrs. Oswald. I have documents, and I would like to ask, please—I will not leave any documents out of my hand. I carry them with me wherever I go. Even Mr. Doyle has been told that the documents stay with me.
I have had documents stolen from me. I have had newspaper clippings stolen from me in my home, by the Secret Service.
I make the statement perfectly plain. And so the documents stay with me.
Now, these are originals. I want, and you will want, copies of every original I have, and I will be more than happy to let you have them. However, I want to be present when these copies are made and the original returned to me.
I will under no circumstances let anyone have my originals for an hour or two, and then return them to me—if I am making myself plain.
I would like to request that, please.
The Chairman. We will accommodate you in that respect.
Mrs. Oswald. Then I have one other stipulation or request.
When I tell my story, I will be including people in my story that possibly you don't know of. I request that I have the privilege, through you, of course, to subpena these people that are in connection with the story that I tell, if you do not have the names already.
And I feel sure that I have some information that you don't know about, and there are some people involved.
I also request that after my testimony, that Marina Oswald will be subpenaed—not subpenaed but will then testify again, if you see fit. And I believe that I have contrary testimony to her testimony that would make it necessary for her to be recalled.
I ask that that be granted.
The Chairman. Well, Mrs. Oswald, of course you have no power of subpena, and we have no power to give you the power of subpena. But you may be sure that if your evidence produces anything that is critical to this investigation, that we will pursue it to the end, in order to determine the weight of the testimony for our final report. You may be sure of that.
Mrs. Oswald. I appreciate that.
The Chairman. But as to how we do it, or when we do it, you will just have to leave that to the Commission.
Mrs. Oswald. You will give me the assurance that these people I name, regardless of title—I am liable to name some very important people——
The Chairman. No, we cannot give you any assurance, because we don't know——
Mrs. Oswald. I see no reason, then, for my testimony.
The Chairman. Well, Mrs. Oswald—you cannot commit us to subpenaing anybody. We don't know. You are talking to us, and we are in the dark. You cannot commit this Commission to doing something that might be improper, it might not even be helpful in any way, shape, or form. The Commission will be reasonable in every respect. We have no desire to protect anyone. We have no desire to injure you or anyone else in this matter. And certainly you ought to have some confidence in a commission that is appointed by the President, and not try to tie our hands in a way that would be contrary to the manner in which commissions normally proceed.
Mrs. Oswald. Now, Mr. Warren, you made a statement that you in no way—I cannot quote your words—intimidate me. But you did not include my son. My son is being accused of the murder of President Kennedy. And I think that my son should be considered in this. He is dead. But we can show cause that my son is not the assassin of President Kennedy. And so I would like my son—he is the main object of the Presidential Commission, is he not, sir?
The Chairman. No, no, he is not, Mrs. Oswald. The purpose of this Commission is to determine what the facts are in the assassination of President Kennedy.
It is not an accusation against your son. There was an accusation against your son in the Texas