50 Years Since JFK Assassination Retrospective: Did CIA Buy JFK Assassination Rifles?

In chapter III of its report, entitled "The Shots From the Texas School Book Depository," the Warren Commission stated that "Lee Harvey Oswald purchased the rifle used in the assassination" and that "the commission concluded that the rifle used to assassinate President Kennedy and wound Governor Connally was owned and possessed by Lee Harvey Oswald."

Yet in his early 1990s book, First Hand Knowledge: How I Participated In The CIA-Mafia Murder of President Kennedy, former CIA operative Robert Morrow stated the following:

"I bought the 3 Mannlicher rifles that would be used to shoot Kennedy.

"I supplied Kennedy's 3 hit squads with communications devices more sophisticated than any previously designed...

"To comprehend why the CIA found it necessary to commit the seemingly treasonous act of murdering the country's Commander-in-Chief, one must understand the political climate of that age...

"As a CIA operative, I witnessed first hand the events that led to the murder...I do not mean to defend or condemn the murder of President Kennedy. I just hope to explain how and why it happened...

"...I will...take you through my...years with the CIA so that you will understand why the United States intelligence community concluded that the President had to be eliminated..."

And in his introduction to this same book, the author of The Kennedys: Dynasty & Disaster, John Davis, wrote the following:

"Mr. Morrow...has given us a first-hand, factual account of the plot to assassinate President Kennedy...When he was ordered by his CIA case officer Tracy Barnes to purchase four...surplus Mannlicher-Carcano rifles he was not informed of their intended use in the JFK assassination.

"Robert Morrow identifies the major players in the plot to assassinate President Kennedy: his CIA case officer, Tracy Barnes; Marshall Diggs, an attorney and former Comptroller of the U.S. Treasury under Roosevelt...

"In addition, Morrow names one of the shooters in the ambush of the president, John Michael Mertz, who he identifies as a former French mercenary and `an assassination expert who worked on the CIA's official hit squad.'"

Coincidentally, in its report, the Warren Commission also noted that--on November 23, 1963--when Dallas Police Captain "Fritz confronted Oswald with the evidence that he had purchased a rifle under the fictitious name of `Hiddell,'" Mr. Oswald "said that this was not true."

(Downtown 7/93)