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There is no statute of limitations for conspiring to obstruct justice in a capital murder case. Stand by for your summons. Or do you think that being an expatriate in that neutralist haven of Switzerland will save you. You see, Pierre, should you choose to exercise Switzerland's non-extradition treaty with the United States, you may do so at the peril of forfeiting your retirement check for ignoring a summons from the U.S. Congress. Take another sip of that fine wine, Pierre.

It wasn't enough for you to screw up the JFK autopsy and provide Arlen Specter with your expert opinion before the Warren Commission. You had to go along with the government's faulty desires to "get that case behind us", so we could all heal the wounds which continue to fester 33 years later. No, Pierre, you got involved in the RFK aftermath, and then the Panamanian Police effort which I am sure you recall, was supervised by the CIA. Coincidence, I guess, how most knowledgeable people think the CIA was responsible for the JFK and RFK murders also. But let's not get presumptuous.

But perhaps we should talk about CIA black terror and assassinations missions later.

I wonder if the Assassinations Record and Review Board will want to grill you about the following matters as were exposed in Probe. Perhaps they will feel, as I do, that your behavior in my case sheds backward light on your performance at Bethesda on the night of 11/22/63.

1. What was the reasoning for involving yourself in attempting to change the findings of a so-called expert in forensic pathology, one Richard Mason, an Army pathologist, who had testified as the government's first witness in a Top Secret murder trial conducted on January 29th and 30th, 1968.
    
2. Did you also believe that your protege, Mason, was terribly mistaken or flat out wrong in his deduction that the wound in question was caused by a .22 or.25 caliber projectile? Did Mason's opinion rub you the wrong way also?
    
3. Did Mason's "field expedient" test leave you with the feeling that such an experiment would not stand the scrutiny of your peers? I'll bet you got a lump in your throat when you observed Mason's findings and conclusion that there were microscopic particles of gunpowder residue in the wound tract? That was a real frost for your forensic mind.
    
4. Were you stupefied by Mason's testimony based on his detective-minded, non-supportive conclusions which flew in the face of all other testimony at the trial? Is that why you encouraged him to reevaluate his expert opinion and ultimately recant his in-court expert testimony, in writing? Is that why you sent Mason a letter of congratulations for changing his expert testimony? Pierre, how could you?
    
5. Did the post-trial review conducted a month after the trial cause you to have some concern because the legal experts had modified Mason's irrefutable in-court testimony by contradicting his expert opinion that it was impossible for a .38 caliber bullet to have caused the wound in question by concluding, "science can not say under any fact or circumstances that a .38 could not have caused the wound in question." ??? Did that bother you very much, Pierre? Those damn lawyers can certainly make life difficult for you experts, can't they?
    
6. Did you have difficulty sleeping with the knowledge that the FBI had detected a particle of quartz stuck to the bullet fragment that Mason had submitted to the FBI lab for analysis? Did you spill any wine when you were advised that the bullet fragment had been lost in the registered mail? Did it bother you in the least that the FBI could not determine the make, caliber, or manufacturer of the bullet fragment Mason removed from the face of the deceased? Do you recall that the FBI report was issued nine days after the trial ended in a conviction and the sentencing of an innocent man to life in prison? Was that the reason you needed Mason to change his testimony and get on board with the new theory that, irrespective of Mason's testimony, as well as that of a firearms examiner, both of whom concluded that a .38 could not have been used to kill the deceased, that a conviction with any theory was better than no conviction at all?
    
7. In September, 1968, you received Mason's recantation of his expert testimony at trial. You must have been happy since you sent Mason a letter of congratulations for finally altering his testimony 8 months after trial. So you had Mason's recantation, the FBI lab report, the autopsy protocol, the autopsy report, Mason's original testimony, but you don't have the bullet fragment since it was lost in registered mail. You have made Mason's recantation available to the government prosecutors, but they choose to argue Mason's original testimony before the Appeals Court. Why? Because only you and the government know about his recantation. What a sensitive situation. And what do you decide to do? You decide to say nothing until you are confronted by one of my lawyers who asks you if you have any new information from Mason or knowledge of where hi is located. You said you had none. This was in March of 1969. But my lawyers did not know you were lying. They had no knowledge of either the FBI report or Mason's altered testimony; or of your correspondence with him coaxing him to alter the testimony and get on board with a new .38 caliber theory. How do I know this? Because of the assignments of error submitted to the Board of Military Review, first step in the appellate process. You see, Pierre, my lawyers quoted your own book on forensic science in detail on the point of not having doctors like Mason relying on unproven, untested, field expedient "tests" like the one he did. But you probably weren't aware of us using your own book. You were too busy testifying at Jim Garrison's trial of Clay Shaw where you revealed the equally unbelievable bad work you supervised at President Kennedy's autopsy.
    
8. Were you ware Pierre that one of your subordinates blew your cover in the McCarthy case after your cover was blown by Garrison in the Kennedy case? I'll set the scene for you. My lawyer was sitting in the Pentagon cafeteria in early March of 1970. Suddenly he was joined by a lawyer who worked for you in the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology. He startled my attorney by asking if he had seen the McCarthy file in your office. Recall, you had denied the existence of such a file and specific information in it. When my lawyer said no, your colleague escorted him over to your office. He then gave him the file from your cabinet. He cautioned him by saying there was a sergeant down the hall, but there was a copy machine in the same room. When my lawyer opened this file, the first page was Mason's recantation. This was fairly forthright. He says he was mistaken about the weapon being a .22 caliber and the wound being a contact wound, which, by the way, was the compelling testimony leading to the original guilty verdict. The FBI lab report and your coaxing of Mason to switch was also in the file.

One more thing Pierre. Richard Mason, lately of San Diego, signed an affidavit in December of 1969, stating that he had never "knowingly" kept any information from my defense team. He swore to this in front of a notary public in San Francisco. Does that mean he perjured himself? Probably, since Mason had written his recantation in September of 1968. As stated above, this was located in your files in March of 1970.

Maybe you thought that your associates in CIA and Pentagon would forever keep this matter from being public record, exposed to the light of day and illuminated by fact. Wrong, Pierre. And there is more to come.

Will you come down from your Swiss chalet now, to talk to someone besides Don Breo and JAMA?

John McCarthy
April 1996

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