(Testimony of Prof. Revilo Pendleton Oliver)
Mr. Oliver.
the people with whom he surrounded himself in the opening years of his administration were intended to provide a demonstration of their fatuity and probable disloyalty--the fatuity of the measures and the probable disloyalty of the many persons involved; that he was planning to execute, as I said here, a volte-face and make a dramatic gesture and espouse a policy of national independence instead of "interdependence."
Mr. Jenner.
You follow the statement I have quoted, with this statement, Doctor, "For this comforting hypothesis there is no evidence now known." As of this moment is there any "evidence now known" to you?
Mr. Oliver.
None that is known to me. So far as I know that is still conjecture and what is sometimes called wishful thinking. I may say if there is any evidence of it I should be very happy to hear it.
Mr. Jenner.
Point No. 2 appears in the right-hand column, and I read, "That the assassination was the result of one of the rifts that now infrequently occur--
Mr. Oliver.
Pardon me, "not infrequently."
Mr. Jenner.
Pardon me--"not infrequently occur within the management of the Communist conspiracy whose satraps sometimes liquidate one another without defecting from the conspiracy, such as Persian satraps."
Would you read the rest of it, you have a couple of words in there I am not.
Mr. Oliver.
"Just as Persian satraps, such as Tissaphernes and Pharnabazus made war on one another without revolting or intending to revolt against the King of Kings."
Mr. Jenner.
This point No. 2 is as in the case of point No. 1, a rationalization on your part.
Mr. Oliver.
I would prefer to call it deduction on my part.
Mr. Jenner.
I will accept the amendment.
You then say, "Now, it was generally suspected for some time before the assassination that Khrushchev and Kennedy were planning to stage another show to bamboozle the American suckers just before the election next November." ..
What is your source, if any, for the statement that Khrushchev and Kennedy were planning, as you put it, another show ?
Mr. Oliver.
The frequent reports of preparations for an invasion of Cuba planned, it would seem, to substitute for Castro a less-well-known Communist.
Mr. Jenner.
Here again this was a statement of deduction on your part?
Mr. Oliver.
Yes.
Mr. Jenner.
From newspaper accounts and radio broadcasts and general information that was abroad?
Mr. Oliver.
General information, rumors you pick up, what you are told by various analysts and so on.
Mr. Jenner.
Would you turn to 3 which appears on page 207 This is your third deduction, I gather:
"That the conspiracy ordered the assassination as part of a systematic preparation for a domestic takeover. If so, the plan, of course, was to place the blame on the 'rightwing extremists' (if I may use the Bolshevik's code word for informed and loyal Americans), and we may be sure that a whole train of "clues" had been carefully planted to lead or point in that direction as soon as Oswald was safe in Mexico."
What was the source of that statement in your article ?
Mr. Oliver.
This again is deduction.
Mr. Jenner.
From the sources you have already related in your testimony?
Mr. Oliver.
Yes.
Mr. Jenner.
You then in the right-hand column proceed to discuss "two objections to this explanation" and interpolate, "but neither is cogent".You continue on then with deduction again, do you, sir ?
Mr. Oliver.
That is right.
Mr. Jenner.
Based on the same sources?
Mr. Oliver.
Yes.
Mr. Jenner.
I notice that three-quarters of the way down in the right-hand column on page 20 you state, "For that matter, a potentially serious and quite. unnecessary mistake was made when the Communist Party's official publication,
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