The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy – Part 9: What Information Did Joe Ball and David Belin Overlook?

Reading Time: 10 minutes

Reading Guide:

• This part, along with parts 10 and 11, revisits the topic from part 8 (regarding the forged photos of the sniper’s nest by Dallas police) but from a different perspective.
• Parts 9, 10, and 11 form a whole and can be read independently of part 8.
• The images, along with their captions, summarize the essence of the story

Dallas, November 22, 1963 – The Forged Photos of the Sniper’s Nest

Half an hour after President Kennedy’s assassination, three rifle casings were found on the 6^th floor of the so-called Texas School Book Depository. They were lying in front of a window overlooking Elm Street, where Kennedy’s car had passed. Three stacks of book boxes stood by the window, behind which a potential shooter could have hidden (see Figs.1, 2, and 4). This location would become known as the sniper’s nest. Below, we compare two photos of the sniper’s nest: the official police photo, supposedly taken at 1:20 PM (Fig.1), and a photo taken after 4 PM by press photographer William Allen (Fig.2).

In both photos the boxes in the foreground are stacked in exactly the same way, but the casings are missing in Allen’s photo. This could mean that Day and Studebaker left untouched the three stacks of boxes that separated the sniper’s nest from the rest of the 6^th floor while working around them. However, earlier that afternoon—before he was allowed into the Texas School Book Depository—William Allen had taken photos outside, showing Studebaker working hard at the 6^th floor window. In his search for fingerprints on the book boxes, Studebaker eventually moved two stacks in front of the window (see Fig.5b). This dismantled the sniper’s nest.

The boxes must have been put back later, after Day returned at 3 PM (having taken the recently discovered rifle to the police station in the meantime). At that point, they reconstructed the original sniper’s nest the way they remembered it. Not surprisingly, they  could not recall how exactly the stacks of boxes had originally been arranged. The photos were taken only after the reconstruction was complete and the casings were placed back, which likely happened around 3:30 PM. Did Ball and Belin know this and conceal it? Or did they never discover that the photos were staged?

Due to the lack of photos and descriptions of the original sniper’s nest, we simply do not know what the setup looked like at 12:30 PM. We do not even know for sure how many stacks of boxes (three or four?) were there. Nor do we know how close the stacks were to the window from which the shots were allegedly fired. Was there enough space for a shooter to position a rifle there? And were the three boxes directly in front of the window (Fig.4) meant to support the rifle, as the Warren Report claims? Wouldn’t they have obstructed the shooter? Another thing we do not know is how difficult it was for a potential shooter to exit the sniper’s nest. This last point is crucial for determining how long it would have taken the shooter to reach the lunchroom on the 2^nd floor. As we explained in part 6 of this series, Oswald’s alibi partly depends on this.

A Thought Experiment: What Must They Have Missed?

On behalf of the Warren Commission (which investigated President Kennedy’s assassination), two prominent lawyers, Joe Ball and David Belin, conducted the most important part of the investigation. Their task was to determine who assassinated Kennedy. In part 8, we assumed that Ball and Belin had indeed discovered that Day and Studebaker’s photos were forgeries and that Studebaker had dismantled the sniper’s nest while searching for fingerprints on the boxes. We concluded that both investigators deliberately concealed this. Did we jump to conclusions there? Let’s conduct a thought experiment. Let’s assume that Ball and Belin were unaware of Studebaker’s dismantling of the sniper’s nest and genuinely believed that the photos were authentic. This means they must have overlooked a great deal of information.

Missed Information

When Ball and Belin began their investigation in January 1964, only one book had been published about the Kennedy assassination. It was a photo book titled Four Days, containing important photographs that Ball and Belin failed to appreciate properly. The Dallas police report on Kennedy’s assassination contained no reports from Day and Studebaker. Ball and Belin apparently did not find this odd. Furthermore, they did not recognize the importance of the photographs taken by William Allen of Studebaker’s activities. Nor did they pay attention to what were probably traces of fingerprint powder on the official police photo (see Fig.1). They also overlooked the request from Day and Studebaker for additional materials to be sent to the Texas School Book Depository. Finally, the only journalists who were present in and around the School Book Depository all afternoon were not called as witnesses. We will discuss these points in more detail below.

1. In December 1963, the voluminous, more than 400-page report of the Dallas police was completed. It covered the murders of President Kennedy, Officer J.D. Tippit, and the alleged shooter, Lee Harvey Oswald. However, one would look in vain in this report for contributions from Inspector Day and Detective Studebaker. This is remarkable because they were the very ones who found crucial evidence pointing to Oswald’s guilt: three shell casings and Oswald’s fingerprints on the three boxes right in front of the window. It is possible that Ball and Belin noticed the absence of these contributions, but it was not reason enough for them to question Day and Studebaker about it.

2. In January 1964, Four Days, the first book on the assassination of President Kennedy, was published. Ball and Belin undoubtedly saw the photographs in Four Days included below. These photos were taken by William Allen, although his name is not mentioned in the book. Perhaps Ball and Belin noticed the striking similarity between the police photo (CE 715) and Allen’s, but they may have thought that only the three boxes directly under the window (see Fig.4) had been moved. And that the three stacks of boxes positioned slightly further back had remained untouched. If that were the case, they would of course have assumed that both photos (Figs.1 and 2) showed exactly the same image.

3. Again, Ball and Belin did not study the left photo of Fig. 5a carefully. It was not difficult to see that there were stacks of boxes in front of the window and that the sniper’s nest had therefore been dismantled (see also Fig.5b). The photo of the building was printed quite large: 10 by 16 cm. One would assume that Ball and Belin, especially because of the arrow, would have looked more attentively at the window where the shooter was supposed to have been. The arrow is rather prominent! If they had paid attention, they would have noticed the stacks of boxes in front of the window, and would have wondered where they had originally come from. But Ball and Belin also did not see the other photos William Allen took on November 22 of Studebaker’s activities. In those photos, Studebaker himself can be seen working. And in some of them, stacks of boxes are visible in front of the window.

4. Studying photos was apparently not the strong suit of these two gentlemen. On one of the boxes (the second box from the bottom, left in the foreground), traces of the powder Studebaker used to try to detect fingerprints are probably visible (see Figs.1 and 2). Ball and Belin should have asked Studebaker whether this was indeed the case. And whether he had examined any other boxes around the sniper’s nest. And: had he also moved those boxes?

5. Tom Alyea was the only journalist to spend the entire afternoon of November 22 inside the School Book Depository. Around 2 PM that afternoon, he even managed to smuggle out a film of the rifle’s discovery, which aired on television an hour later. As we explained in Part 8, Alyea had seen Studebaker dismantle the sniper’s nest. Yet, he was not called as a witness by Ball and Belin, whereas they did interview other journalists who had little to contribute. It was not until thirty years later that Alyea recounted what he had seen on the 6^th floor.

6. On November 22, William Allen (a photographer for the Dallas Times Herald) took photos throughout the afternoon around and inside the School Book Depository. Unlike Tom Alyea, he initially was unable to enter the building. That’s why he spent time (until around 4 PM) taking photographs of the outside of the building (see Figs. 3 and 5). These photos show Studebaker dismantling the sniper’s nest. Later, when Allen was admitted to the building along with other journalists at 4 PM, he took several photos of the (reconstructed) sniper’s nest (Figs. 2 and 5). As a witness, he—like Alyea—could have provided valuable information, but he was not called by Ball and Belin.

7. Besides Alyea and Allen, there was yet another source that could have led Ball and Belin to the activities of Day and Studebaker on the 6^th floor. One of the volumes of the Exhibits of the Warren Report contains transcripts of Dallas police radio communications from November 22. That day, at 1:45 PM, a message was sent from Studebaker and Day’s car requesting additional materials to be brought to the 6^th floor.

Belin was familiar with the transcripts: he used them regularly during the interrogations of the officers. But the report at a quarter to two escaped his notice. That is unfortunate: it would have raised several crucial questions that Ball and Belin could have asked both detectives. What else did Day and Studebaker actually need for their investigation? During his interrogation, Day stated that they always had the necessary equipment in their car:

“We have a station wagon equipped with fingerprint equipment, cameras, containers, various other articles that might be needed at the scene of the crime.”

Source: Hearings to the Warren Report, Volume 4, p. 250.

Who was the officer that brought them the materials? What did that officer find there? These questions could have been asked in Day’s interrogation (led by Belin) and Studebaker’s interrogation (led by Ball), but they were not. The driver of the police car with call number 49 was not tracked down, and therefore not questioned.

Our hypothesis was that Belin and Ball did not know that the sniper’s nest had been dismantled and therefore did not realize that the photos of it had been falsified. This hypothesis only holds if they overlooked not just this radio communication but also all other sources of information discussed here. But were they competent investigators then? This will be discussed in more detail in parts 10 and 11. The question whether the hypothesis can stand up will be addressed at the end of part 11.

Sources

Literature: Warren Report (1964) p. 137-142; Four Days: The Historical Record of the Death of President Kennedy (1964); David Belin, Final Disclosure: The Full Truth About the Assassination of President Kennedy (New York 1988); Connie Kritzberg, Secrets from the Sixth Floor Window (Tulsa 1994); Howard P. Willens, History will prove us right: Inside the Warren Commission Report on the Assassination of John F. Kennedy (New York 2013).

Hearings: Robert Studebaker (7H 137-149 – April 6, 1964);  J.C. Day (4H 249-278 – April 22). These interrogations can also be found on the internet.

Dallas Police Report in: Exhibits of the Warren Report, Volume 24, pp. 195-404 (CE 2003). In this section of the Exhibits, two pages of the police report are printed on one page. This is why the more than 400 pages of the police report take up only 210 pages in Volume 24.

Transcripts of Dallas police radio in: Exhibits of the Warren Report, Volume 17, pp. 389-494 (CE 705).

Photos of the sniper’s nest in the Exhibits of the Warren Report: Volume 17, pp. 199-226 and 499-510; Volume 21, pp. 643-649. Most of the photos included here are courtesy of the University of North Texas’ excellent database: The Portal to Texas History. The digital renderings are far better than the photos printed in the Exhibits of the Warren Report. The photos by William Allen (Figures 2 and 3) are also copied from this site: they have not been published in the Exhibits of the Warren Report.

Sources photographs:

Fig. 1:

Dallas (Tex.). Police Department. Texas School Book Depository [Negative], photograph, 1963~; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth49541/m1/1/: accessed December 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Dallas Municipal Archives.

Fig. 2:

William Allen, November 22,

1963; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth184779/m1/1/: University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza.

Fig.3:                                                

Allen, William. [Dallas Police Detective Robert L. Studebaker in alleged sniper’s perch], photograph, November 22, 1963; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth184821/m1/1/: accessed July 24, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza.

Fig. 4:

Dallas (Tex.). Police Department. Boxes in the Texas School Book Depository, photograph, 1963~; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth49475/m1/1/: accessed December 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Dallas Municipal Archives.

Plan for the next parts

• Part 10: What went wrong during the interrogations led by Joe Ball and David Belin? (Scheduled release date: March 2025).
• Part 11: Were Joe Ball and David Belin incompetent investigators or competent liars? (April 2025).
• Part 12: The discovery of the rifle on the 6^th floor of the Texas School Book Depository (April 2025).
• Part 13: Warren Commission’s reconstruction of the time it took Baker and Truly to reach the lunchroom on the second floor (May 2025).
• Part 14: Reconstruction of the time it actually took Baker and Truly to reach the lunchroom on the second floor (May 2025).
• Part 15: Warren Commission’s reconstruction of the time it took Oswald to get from the 6^th floor to the lunchroom.
• Part 16: Reconstruction of the actual time it must have taken Oswald to get from the 6^th floor to the lunchroom.
• Part 17: Discovery of the paper bag (in which the rifle would have been carried by Oswald) on the 6^th floor.
• Part 18: The missing hour: Oswald at the Dallas police station between 2:00 and 3:00 PM on Friday, November 22, 1963.
• Part 19: Interrogations of Oswald on November 22, 23, and 24, 1963

Note: The idea of a “thought experiment” is derived from the dissertation by Marco van Leeuwen, Bijstand in Amsterdam ca. 1800-1850, Amsterdam, 1992.

translated by Ite Wierenga