Mark Lane and Ruby's Warren Commission
                         Testimony


The following is from the autobiographical "Introduction" to
Jean Davison's OSWALD'S GAME, pp. 17-19.  It tells of her initial
experiences researching the assassination.


-----------------------------------------------------------


     I found the blue-bound Hearings in a local university
library.  Volumes I-XV contained the testimony of witnesses
who appeared at the Commission's hearings or gave
depositions before a Commission lawyer. The
question-and-answer format made the transcripts read like
the text of a play. The remaining volumes contained exhibits
entered as evidence -- FBI reports, photographs, and similar
documents. The first thing that struck me was how
disorganized this material was. An FBI report on ballistics
might be followed by a psychiatric report on Jack Ruby's
mother or a description of the preparations for the
motorcade. And there was no index. I began taking notes,
wondering if I could ever find an underlying order in this
jumble of information.  

     During the reading I checked some of Mark Lane's
footnotes. The testimony he had cited as evidence that the
Warren Report was a cover-up had often been quoted out of
context, so that what he quoted changed the meaning of what
had actually been said. For example, the way Lane wrote
about Jack Ruby's testimony led readers to believe that Ruby
was denied the opportunity to reveal the existence of a
conspiracy.

     After Ruby had been convicted of Oswald's murder and
sentenced to death, Warren Commission members Earl Warren
and Gerald R. Ford questioned him at the Dallas jail. For
many months, there had been rumors that Ruby was a hit man
whose job had been to silence Oswald. To hear Lane tell it,
Ruby seemed eager to disclose his part in this conspiracy:

     Ruby made it plain that if the Commission took
     him from the Dallas County Jail and permitted him
     to testify in Washington, he could tell more
     there; it was impossible for him to tell the
     whole truth so long as he was in the jail in
     Dallas. . . . "I would like to request that I go
     to Washington and . . . take all the tests that I
     have to take. It is very important.... Gentlemen,
     unless you get me to Washington, you can't get a
     fair shake out of me."

After quoting similar statements by Ruby, Lane continued:

     Representative Ford asked, not a little
     redundantly, "Is there anything more you can tell
     us if you went back to Washington?" Ruby told him
     that there was, and just before the hearing ended
     Ruby made one last plea to the Chief Justice of
     the United States.

     RUBY: But you are the only one that can save me.
     I think you can.

     WARREN: Yes?

     RUBY: But by delaying minutes, you lose the
     chance. And all I want to do is tell the truth,
     and that is all.

But Warren didn't take him to Washington. Reading Lane's
account, one is horrified. His implication is clear: Ruby
was begging to be allowed to expose the conspiracy, and the
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court wouldn't listen.

     Everything Lane quoted was in the record. What he
*didn't* say, however, was that the "tests" Ruby wanted to
take were simply a lie detector test--and the reason Ruby
wanted to take one was to prove that he was *not* part of a
conspiracy.

     After his arrest, Ruby had been diagnosed as a
"psychotic depressive." His testimony to the Commission
indicates that he believed he was the victim of a political
conspiracy by right-wing forces in Dallas.  He suggested
that the John Birch Society was spreading the falsehood that
he, a Jew, was implicated in the president's death in order
to create anti-Jewish hysteria. "The Jewish people are being
exterminated at this moment," Ruby insisted. "Consequently,
a whole new form of government is going to take over our
country." To foil this supposed plot, Ruby repeatedly asked
to be given a lie detector test.  At various points in their
conversation Ruby told Warren:

     No subversive organization gave me any idea. No
     underworld person made any effort to contact me.
     It all happened that Sunday morning.. . . If you
     don't take me back to Washington tonight to give
     me a chance to prove to the President that I am
     not guilty, then you will see the most tragic
     thing that will ever happen.... All I want is a
     lie detector test.. . . All I want to do is tell
     the truth, and that is all. There was no
     conspiracy.

     The following month Ruby was allowed to take a
polygraph test in his jail cell, and he showed no signs of
deception when he denied being part of a conspiracy. Because
of the doubts about his sanity, however, the test results
were considered inconclusive.

     The only part of this background that appears in Lane's
book is Ruby's statement, "All I want to do is tell the
truth, and that is all."  Had he presented the accompanying
material, Lane might have argued that Ruby was faking.
Instead, Lane cheated. He transformed a man who seemed
pathetically anxious to prove his innocence into an honest
conspirator desperate to reveal everything he knew. And this
was only one of many similar distortions in RUSH TO
JUDGMENT.  

     I remember feeling outraged when I realized what Lane
had done. Evidently, the Warren records were like a vast
lumberyard. By picking up a few pieces here and there, and
doing some cutting and fitting, any theory could be built
for which someone had a blueprint.