VOICE: She left.
CHAIRMAN TUNHEIM: Okay. Mr. Daryl Weatherly.
VOICE: Mr. Tunheim, would it be possible for people to be added on after you finish the list that you have before you?
CHAIRMAN TUNHEIM: Talk to Mr. Marwell.
VOICE: He said he didn't know whether there was availability for that.
CHAIRMAN TUNHEIM: We are running a little bit short on time. We certainly would appreciate anyone who doesn't have an opportunity to testify today, we are holding the record open for 30 days and we will take any additional testimony that people wish.
I do think we should wrap up within about ten minutes or so because we have been going for quite some time.
VOICE: How about, as opposed to testifying, hand-delivering something to you as a record?
CHAIRMAN TUNHEIM: Certainly, that would be just fine.
Go ahead, Mr. Weatherly.
MR. WEATHERLY: I must say it is an accident that you called me to talk because I thought the sheet that I signed was merely a sign-in sheet to come in here. But I would like to say, I want to emphasize one point made by Mr. Livingstone that what purport to be the autopsy pictures and X-rays of the late President should certainly be considered as records because they have been given enormous importance by a large number of people who have written or commented on this case.
Now there are versions or additions of these pictures that are in the public domain. They have been published in books, and they have been commented on in wildly different ways. I will just take the example of two people who are defenders of the Warren Report, Dr. Robert Artwohl writing in the Journal of the American Medical Association has commented on these pictures that are available in the public domain that they are, as far as he is concerned, exactly identical to the withheld pictures in the Archives.
In the same issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, Dr. John Lattimer, who has also seen the pictures in the Archives, comments upon the publicly available pictures, that they are pictures of latex dummies. These are two people that consider themselves outspoken defenders of the Warren Commission writing in the same magazine that defends the Warren Report and saying diametrically opposite things about these artifacts.
Now a point has been brought up by, I think, Mr. Zaid that records, and I would like you to consider these pictures to be records, records that are in the possession of former government people that they took with them when they left government service, you should make an effort to get those records, especially if there are circumstances that indicate these records were not taken properly.
In the case of the autopsy pictures which are out in many additions and many copies in the public domain, they originate from or seem to originate from an individual who once worked for the government, for the House Assassinations Committee. That individual has clearly been in possession of those pictures, or certainly by publishing them in a book suggests that he has been in possession of them, and has, I think, at least expressed his opinion that he was given permission to take these pictures by personnel of the House Assassinations Committee. That might be in dispute. I certainly think it is in dispute whether this person who currently possesses the pictures actually properly took them out of the Archives or out of the possession of the House Committee when he left government service.
So this is certainly the kind of record that I think this Committee should use its powers to go after, including its powers to, say, subpoena former employees of the government to get their government materials that they have now.
Any questions?
CHAIRMAN TUNHEIM: Thank you.
Any questions?
[No response.]
CHAIRMAN TUNHEIM: Thank you very much. We appreciate your help.
[Applause.]
CHAIRMAN TUNHEIM: We have reached the hour of 1:30 and so we are going to call a halt to the formal testimony today of the Assassination Records Review Board's first public hearing. I will remind you all that the public hearing will remain open for 30 days through the 10th of November, and we would, appreciate and, indeed, welcome any additional material being submitted to us. We will include all of it as part of the record of the hearing today.
So if any of you wish to submit additional material, or if you know of others who would like to, we would appreciate receiving that, again, on the issue of how we should be defining an assassination record.
I mentioned earlier that the Board is tentatively planning a public hearing in the State of Texas, in Dallas, for November 18th, again to discuss the issue of record groups and where they might be particularly focusing on State and local archives, and there will be more notice and information about that coming forward soon.
Thank you all for your patience today and for sharing information with us. We very much appreciate your help. Thank you.
[Whereupon, at 1:30 p.m., the hearing was concluded.]