An Open Letter-And Challenge-To G. Robert Blakey by Wallace Milam

              PENN JONES T H E
CONTINUING
INQUIRY
VOLUME V , NUMBER 7 FEBRUARY 22 . 1981 I
AN OPEN LETTER—AND CHALLENGE—TO 6. ROBERT BLAKEY
Mr. Blakey:
Frankly, you're a puzzle to us. I t ' s three
years since the c r i t i c s f i r s t heard of you
and, while you've become increasingly more
v i s i b le and vocal, many of us are s t i l l not
sure whether you're part of the solution or
part of the problem.
Now, puzzles are not new to Kennedy assassina­tion
researchers. Hardly. When one chips
'away at a facade as large and as rotten as
the Kennedy cover-up, one becomes accustomed
to.pieces that do not f i t - - a n d you're not
the f i r s t investigator to become controversial
over these past seventeen years. But there
are some differences: f i r s t , as Inquiry
magazines noted in an interview with you,
Robert Blakey is now the one person having
the greatest influence with government
o f f i c i a l s - - w i t h access to some significant
and/or sympathetic ears in Washington; second,
from time to time, you have made statements
that would seem to indicate real knowledge
and concern about who k i l l e d JFK. You told
Chris Stanley during interviews in the
summer of 1979 that you were convinced there
was a conspiracy and that "the Mob did i t , " '
.and are apparently echoing this in your book
with Dick Billings.2 In the Stanley inter­view,
you raised hopes and eyebrows when
•you hinted that you could come close to
bringing indictments in 6-8 months, given
proper investigative assistance. But
-nothing you've said has impressed me as
much as your admission that "We didn't do
i t right in 1964"^ and your statement that
" to see how poor this was done...has been
the single most soul-shattering experience
that I've ever had."^ Now that, Mr. Blakey,
is a statement any Kennedy investigator
coujd say "Amen!" to.
Unfortunately, your statements have npt
ended there: take the callous remark about
the c r i t i c s and the 50-year restriction
on HSCA f i l e s : "They w i l l (get to see them)
i f they are historians and i f they live long
enough." How do you t e l l this to Penn Jones
or Harold Weisberg of Mary Ferrell or count­less
other people who were bucking the mass
of deceit and lies you now condemn while
you were s t i l l regarding the Warren Report
as a "workman-like product ?"5 Then, there
is the one statement which I think wil1
haunt you in time to come: "Look, I have
no doubt that Lee Harvey Oswald k i l l e d the
President. Oswald did i t , i t ' s «an open and
shut case. I should be a prosecutor with
evidence l i ke that in every case."^
Well, that's the purpose of this l e t t e r,
Mr. Blakey. YOu see, I don't think Oswald
did i t , and I'd like for you to be the pro­secutor
with "evidence like that," too--with
me as Oswald's defender-- you with your
legal expertise, me with the facts--facts
you evidently chose not to look at when HSCA
did i t s investigation. So, l e t ' s have at i t.
The Burden of Proof
To make your "open and shut case," you w i ll
have to show that Lee Harvey Oswald fired
one or more shots from the 6th floor of the
Texas School Book Depository and that a bul­let
or bullets from this/these shot{s)
struck President Kennedy in the head.'
First question: Cdn you place Oswald on the
6th floor in the minutes before the ass­assination.?
1. It is clear from the testimony
of TSBD employees that work crews broke for
lunch at 11:45, and that Oswald was then near
the 5th floor elevator gate, asking that
an elevator be sent back up for him.°
2. And here's your problem, Mr.
Blakey: there is no credible evidence--
none--to show that Lee Harvey Oswald
ever again returned to the 6th floor. Per-