| JFK Assassination Hearings - H.B. McClain and Dr. James Barger | ||
|---|---|---|
| This clip is not available for streaming at this time. Please contact WPA. | Tape Master: | 3648 |
| Catalog #: | 459720 | |
| Clip Number: | 459720-1 | |
| Orginal Film: | ||
| Timecode: | ||
| Location: | Old House Caucus Room | |
| Year Shot: | 1978 (Actual Year) | |
| Audio: | Yes | |
| Color: | Yes | |
| Headings: | GOVERNMENT: Hearings, JFK Assassination | |
| Description: | (01:01:22) Opens to Representative FLOYD FITHIAN questioning witness H.B. McCLAIN, Dallas Police motorcycle man, Fithian asks McClain if he saw any activity around the grassy knoll - McClain responds that he saw Officer HARGAS (?) going up the knoll (01:02:15) Chairman LOUIS STOKES recognizes Representative CHRISTOPHER DODD, Dodd asks how McClain can identify himself in the blown up photographs of the JFK motorcade taken from a film of the motorcade - McClain says he can identify himself by the way he is sitting on the motorcycle - Dodd and Delegate WALTER FAUNTROY joke playfully with McClain about how he sits that he can distinguish himself 15 years later in a photograph (in the photos the motorcycle man's position seems to contain nothing extrordinary about it) (01:04:05) Dodd asks McClain if the dispatch radio at headquarters could receive two transmissions at once - McClain responds that it would happen often, mixing the transmissions together - Dodd asks McClain if he knew of any bell noises eminating from Dealey Plaza - McClain answers no (01:05:36) Deputy Chief Counsel GARY T. CORNWELL confirms with McClain that he can also identify himself in exhibit photos of the JFK motorcade from his positioning within the motorcycle escort and relative to the limosine procession (01:06:50) Stokes recognizes McClain's opportunity to suppliment his testimony - McClain declines to do so - Stokes calls a recess (01:07:48) Hearings host PAUL DUKE voices over shot of hearing room with summary of the morning's testimony (01:09:36) Shot changes to Duke in broadcast booth, he introduces his panel CARL OGLESBY of the Assassination Information Bureau and JEREMIAH O'LEARY of the Washington Star who discuss the day's testimony thus far (01:14:40) Duke closes out the morning's coverage (01:14:55) Shot returns to hearing room (01:15:05) WETA logo (01:15:15) PBS funding credit (01:15:23) PBS logo (01:16:27) WETA logo (01:16:35) PBS funding credit (01:16:43) Shot opens up to hearing room, Duke voices over an introduction to the afternoon's hearings, shot soon after switches to him, he goes on to sum up the morning's testimony (01:18:20) Duke again introduces panel, Oglesby and O'Leary, who discuss the conspiracy implications of the morning's testimony (01:22:30) Duke introduces to the Committee Vice Chairman Representative RICHARDSON PREYER, Duke, Preyer and O'Leary have a long discussion about the morning's testimony, Preyer says he believes it pretty definitively implicates a second shooter and therefore a conspiracy, but he believes this conspiracy not to be planned by any large political organization, rather he suggests it was a conspircacy of "nuts", Preyer also defends the conclusions of the morning's witnesses, E. ASCHKENASY and MARK WEISS, against attacks O'Leary launches against them saying they made huge assumptions and produced results applicable only to labratory conditions (01:31:08) Duke introduces the afternoon's testimony and shot returns to hearings room (01:31:43) Chairman Stokes recognizes Chief Counsel Professor ROBERT BLAKEY, Blakey begins by siting evidence that substantiate the temperature at Dealey Plaza at the time of the assassination (an issue that came up in the morning testimony of Aschkenasy and Weiss), Blakey then goes on to introduce Dr. ROBERT BARGER and list his credentials (01:36:08) Stokes calls and swears in Barger and recognizes Deputy ChiefCounsel JAMES WOLF, Wolf confirms Barger's accomplishment at the Kent State trial, then asks a bit of background about his original testimony before the committee in September ('78) (01:37:55) Wolf reviews with Barger the acoustic research experiments he conducted in August in Dealey Plaza using an exhibit of a survey map of Dealey plaza, on the map Barger points out the markers which indicate his equipment positioning, namely microphones and rifle firing locations (01:41:15) Wolf introduces an exhibit of a chart of 4 groupings of impulses and their corresponding measurements that Barger believes are gun shots, Barger then explains at length how these groupings or fingerprints as he calls them (the sound waves produced by each of the gun shots Barger describes as a unique fingerprint) correspond to the sound waves recorded by microphones Barger had lining the roads around Dealey plaza (01:46:45) Wolf has Barger explain his markings on the map which indicate the position of the motorcycle (and recording) relative to the microphones he set up - Wolf also confirms that Barger's locations of the motorcycle match those recalled by McClain - Barger confirms this with a long explanation (01:52:40) Wolf quotes from a report of another scientist's acoustic analysis of the tape that suggests, based on the crescendo and decrescendo of the siren volume, that the motorcycle recording came from a motorcycle that was not part of the motorcade - Barger rejects this challenge by saying that the siren noise level would been softer in volume than that of the ambiant noise entering the microphone (01:57:12) Wolf quotes again from the above mentioned report, this time it is a section which mentions that the tape also has a bell noise on it and points out the location of a likely candidate to have produced such a noise, the location of this bell is not close to Dealey Plaza - Barger says that he agrees with McClain's earlier testimony that Police dispatch radio will merge simultaneous transmissions from different radios and that anyway the bell noise occurs after what he has identified as the four shots (01:59:08) Wolf asks Barger if he has had the chance to review the conclusions of Aschkenasy and Weiss - Barger responds that he helped the two men formulate the analytical approach they were to apply to his test data to conclude if there was a fourth shot from the grassy knoll, he then reviewed and agreed with their methods of analysis and their findings (02:02:06) Wolf begins to ask Barger to explain the discrepancy between his statement in September testimony that there was a 50/50 chance that there was a forth shot and Aschkenasy and Weiss' testimony that they can be 95% sure there was forth shot but Wolf is cut off by the end of the tape | |
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