A CITIZEN'S DISSENT: Mark Lane Replies

The cumulative and insistent doubt expressed by the critics of the Warren Commission Report has been steadily growing in the years since its publication. Mark Lane's own Rush to Judgment was published in 1966 by Holt after a number of major houses had refused to deal with it. He tells this story and that of his attempt to air his doubts about the findings of the Warren Commission in the press, on the air, in debate and on film. Lane, retained by Marguerite Oswald to represent her son's interest before the Commission, and refused this role by the Commission, scores the members of the Establishment, the communications industry, academia, the professionals for what amounts to collusion in their acceptance of the Commission findings and refusal to consider, indeed the withholding of vital information. Again he airs the familiar elements: shots heard coming from the grassy knoll, the Zapruder films, the throat wound, the single bullet theory, the withheld X-rays, the suppressed autopsy documents. ""A false document was issued with such trappings and in such circumstances that it was to be accepted--or the stability of the society was to be brought into question."" The question now seems to become not whether but why. Mr. Lane, despite his personal involvement, contains his animus, has written a cogent brief that synthesizes former ""new findings"" and adds some of his own as well as telling the story of his dissent.