Lane Rips Conduct of Oswald Inquiry

New York lawyer Mark Lane charged yesterday that the Presidential Commission investigating the assassination of President Kennedy will judge Lee H. Oswald guilty on the basis of insufficient evidence." Lane spoke to a full house in Emerson D; his speech was sponsored by the Young Socialist Club.

Lane, the attorney retained by Oswald's mother to protect the interests of her son, blasted the investigation as a "back-door, star-chamber proceeding run by highly political powers."

"No trial lawyers would have allowed any members of the commission to be on a jury trying Oswald," said Lane. Each would be dismissed because of his connection with the government, since "the government is the prosecuting agent." Lane said that former CIA head Allen Dulles, and not Chief Justice Earl Warren, is "really running the whole show." Warren was appointed by President Johnson to chair the investigations.

Lane criticized the commission for the "absolute secrecy which shrouds the testimony" before it. The result of this policy, he said, is that there are "regular and consistent leaks" of testimony damaging to Oswald, while the commission conceals questions which are raised about Oswald's guilt.

Lane spent most of his three-hour speech asking those questions. Using affidavits, photostats, diagrams, photographs, magazine articles, and tape-recordings. Lane ripped apart charges made against Oswald.

'Statements Proved False'

"Every single statement made by the Dallas police--every single statement subject to verification--has been proved false," he said.

The authorities' "absolute alteration of the evidence of the case" has been paralleled by their failure to investigate a number of "strange" coincidences, Lane charged.

He cited the case of a used car salesman who saw a pistol-carrying man--definitely not Oswald--running from the location where Oswald was alleged by Dallas police to have just shot a patrolman. The salesman, Lane said, was murdered later, and police charged "a local hood" with that murder.

Charges against the man were dropped, however, because he said he was with his girl friend. According to Lane, she was a "Dallas stripper formerly employed in Jack Ruby's night club." Arrested later on a separate charge she hanged herself in her cell. Her boy friend has "completely disappeared."