[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 120 (Monday, October 2, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9561-S9562]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             JOSEPH A. BALL

  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I have sought recognition to comment upon 
the death of one of America's great lawyers, Joseph A. Ball. On 
Saturday, the New York Times carried an extensive account of his 
background and history and accomplishments. I ask unanimous consent 
that at the conclusion of my remarks the copy of the New York Times 
article be printed in the Record.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (See Exhibit 1.)
  Mr. SPECTER. The Times article details the specifics on the positions 
held by Mr. Ball in the lawyers associations, his professorial 
associations as a teacher, his experience as a criminal lawyer, and his 
experience, most pointedly, as one of the senior counsel to the Warren 
Commission, the President's commission which investigated the 
assassination of President Kennedy. It was on the Warren Commission 
staff that I came to know Joe Ball.
  The original complexion of the Warren Commission on staffing was that 
there were six senior counsel who were appointed and six junior 
counsel. That distinction was replaced by putting all of the lawyers 
under the category of assistant counsel. But if there was a senior 
counsel, it was Joe Ball.
  Then, in his early sixties, he was a tower of strength for the 
younger lawyers. When the commission began its work, I was 33. Most of 
the junior lawyers were about the same age. We looked to Joe Ball for 
his experience and for his guidance. He had a special relationship with 
Chief Justice Earl Warren, which was also helpful because Joe Ball 
could find out what Chief Justice Warren had in mind in his capacity as 
chairman and provide some valuable insights that some of the younger 
lawyers were unable to attain.
  Joe Ball worked on what was called area two, along with the very 
distinguished younger lawyer, David Belin from Des Moines, IA. Area two 
was the area which was structured to identify the assassin. Although 
the initial reports had identified Lee Harvey Oswald as the assassin, 
and on television, on November 24, America saw Jack Ruby walk into the 
Dallas police station, put a gun in Oswald's stomach and kill him, the 
Warren Commission started off its investigation without any 
presumptions but looking at the evidence to make that determination as 
to who the assassin was.
  My area was area one, which involved the activities of the President 
on November 22, 1963. There was substantial interaction between the 
work that Joe Ball and Dave Belin did and the work which was assigned 
to me and Francis W.H. Adams, who was senior counsel on area one.
  Frank Adams had been New York City police commissioner and had been 
asked to join the Warren Commission staff when Mayor Wagner sat next to 
Chief Justice Warren at the funeral of former Governor and former 
Senator, Herbert Lehman. Mayor Wagner told Chief Justice Warren that 
Frank Adams, the police commissioner, knew a lot about Presidential 
protection and had designed protection for motorcades in New York City, 
with dangers from tall buildings, which was an analogy to what happened 
to President Kennedy.
  There was question as to how we would coordinate our work, and it was 
sort of decided that Joe Ball and Dave Belin would investigate matters 
when the bullet left the rifle of the assassin in flight, which was no 
man's land, and when it struck the President. That came into area one, 
which was my area: the bullet wounds on President Kennedy, the bullet 
wounds on Governor Connally, what happened with the doctors at Parkland 
Hospital, what happened with the autopsy, all matters related to what 
had happened with President Kennedy.
  We had scheduled the autopsy surgeons for a Monday in early March. 
They were Lieutenant Commander Boswell, Lieutenant Commander Humes and 
Lieutenant Colonel Pierre Finck. The autopsy was done at Bethesda, 
where President Kennedy was taken, because of the family's preference 
that he go to a naval installation because he was a Navy man, so to 
speak, who had served in the Navy.
  The testimony was to be taken on this Monday in March. There was 
quite a debate going on with the Warren Commission staff as to whether 
we should talk to witnesses in advance. It seemed to many of us that we 
should talk to witnesses in advance so we would have an idea as to what 
they would testify to so we could have an orderly presentation, which 
is the way any lawyer talks to a witness whom he is about to call. The 
distinguished Presiding Officer has been a trial lawyer and knows very 
well to what I am referring. There was a segment on the Warren 
Commission staff which thought we should not talk to any witnesses in 
advance, lest there be some overtone of influencing their testimony. 
Finally, this debate had to come

[[Page S9562]]

to a head, and it came to a head the week before the autopsy searchers 
were to testify.
  And on Friday afternoon, Joe Ball and I went out to Bethesda to talk 
to the autopsy surgeons. It was a Friday afternoon, much like a Friday 
afternoon in the Senate. Nobody else was around. It was my area, but I 
was looking for some company, so I asked Joe Ball to accompany me--the 
autopsy surgeons falling in my area. We took the ride out to Bethesda 
and met the commanding admiral and introduced ourselves. We didn't have 
any credentials. The only thing we had to identify ourselves as working 
on the Warren Commission was a building pass for the VFW. My building 
pass had my name typed crooked on the line, obviously having been typed 
in after it was signed. They sign them all and then type them in. It 
didn't look very official at all.
  So when Commander Humes and Commander Bozwell came down to be 
interviewed, Commander Humes was very leery about talking to anybody. 
He had gone through some travail with having burned his notes and 
having been subjected to a lot of comment and criticism about what 
happened at the autopsy, and there were FBI agents present when the 
autopsy was conducted. A report had come out that the bullet that had 
entered the base of the President's neck had been dislodged during the 
autopsy by massage. It had fallen out backward as opposed to having 
gone through the President's body, which was what the medical evidence 
had shown.
  That FBI report that the bullet had entered partially into the 
President's body and then been forced out had caused a lot of 
controversy before the whole facts were known. Later, it was determined 
that the first shot which hit the President--he was hit by two 
bullets--well, the second shot, which hit him in the base of the skull, 
was fatal, entering the base of the skull and exiting at the top at 13 
centimeters, 5 inches--the fatal wound. The first bullet which hit the 
President passed between two large strap muscles, sliced the pleural 
cavity, hit nothing solid and came out, and Governor Connally was 
seated right in front of the President and the bullet would have to 
have hit either Governor Connally or someone in the limousine.
  After extensive tests were conducted, it was concluded that the 
bullet hit Governor Connally. There has been a lot of controversy about 
the single bullet theory, but time has shown that it is correct. A lot 
of tests were conducted on the muzzle velocity of the Oswald rifle. It 
was identified as having been Oswald's, purchased from a Chicago mail 
order store. He came into the building with a large package which could 
have contained the rifle. He said they were curtain rods for an 
apartment which already had curtains. The muzzle velocity was about 
2,200 feet per second, and the velocity after traveling about 275 feet 
was about 1,900 feet per second.
  At any rate, as Joe Ball and I went through it with the autopsy 
surgeons, we found for the first time--because we had only seen the FBI 
reports--that the bullet did go through President Kennedy and decreased 
very little in velocity. It was at that moment when we talked to Dr. 
Humes and Dr. Finck that we came to hypothesize that that bullet might 
have gone through Governor Connally. We didn't come to a conclusion on 
that until we had reviewed very extensive additional notes, but it was 
on that occasion that Joe Ball and I had interviewed the autopsy 
surgeons. It was a marvel to watch Joe Ball work with his extensive 
experience as a lawyer and as a fact finder.
  He lived to the ripe old age of 97. The New York Times obituary had 
very extensive compliments about a great deal of his work and focused 
on his contribution to the Warren Commission, where he had written an 
extensive portion of the Warren Report, as he was assigned to area two 
which compiled a fair amount of the report.
  America has lost a great patriot in Joe Ball, a great citizen, a 
great lawyer, and a great contributor. I had the pleasure of knowing 
him and working with him on the Warren Commission staff and have had 
occasion to reminisce with him about his work. I noted that on his 
office wall in California is his elegantly framed building pass.
  In the absence of any other Senator seeking recognition, I suggest 
the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.

                               Exhibit 1

                  [From the New York Times, Sept. 30]

              J.A. Ball, 97, Counsel to Warren Commission

                             (By Eric Pace)

       Joseph A. Ball, a California trial attorney who was a 
     senior counsel to the Warren Commission, which investigated 
     the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, died on Sept. 
     21 in Long Beach, Calif. He was 97 and a longtime resident of 
     Long Beach.
       At his death, Mr. Ball was a partner in the Los Angeles 
     office of the Hawaii-based law firm Carlsmith Ball. He had 
     been a partner in that firm and its predecessor in Los 
     Angeles for five decades.
       Mr. Ball, who wrote crucial portions of the commission's 
     report, was selected for the commission by United States 
     Chief Justice Earl Warren, who had come to know him in 
     California's political world.
       At that time, Mr. Ball was 61, a leading criminal lawyer, a 
     member of the Supreme Court's Advisory Committee on the 
     Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure and a professor at the 
     University of Southern California Law School.
       In January 1964, he was appointed as one of six senior 
     lawyers who, each assisted by a younger colleague, were to 
     handle one of six broad areas of inquiry.
       Mr. Ball and David W. Belin, a lawyer from Des Moines who 
     was chosen to assist him, concentrated on the area they 
     called ``the determination of who was the assassin of 
     President Kennedy.''
       ``About 10,000 pieces of paper were then rolled into my 
     office; the written reports of various investigative 
     agencies, including the F.B.I., the Dallas Police and the 
     Central Intelligence Agency,'' Mr. Ball wrote in 1993. 
     ``During the first month of the investigation, we classified 
     the information found in the reports by means of a card index 
     system. This permitted the immediate retrieval of this 
     information.'' Witnesses were also questioned during the 
     inquiry.
       Mr. Belin wrote in 1971, after the Commission's report had 
     been criticized, that ``despite the success of the 
     assassination sensationalists in deceiving a large body of 
     world opinion, the Warren Commission Report will stand the 
     test of history for one simple reason: The ultimate truth 
     beyond a reasonable doubt is that Lee Harvey Oswald killed 
     both John F. Kennedy and J.D. Tippit on that tragic afternoon 
     of Nov. 22, 1963.''
       Office Tippit was a Dallas police officer whom Oswald shot 
     shortly before shooting Kennedy.
       The commission's final report was sent to President Lyndon 
     B. Johnson in September 1964.
       Mr. Ball was a president of the American College of Trial 
     Lawyers and of the State Bar of California.
       The Joseph A. Ball Fund to benefit American Bar Association 
     programs of public service and education and to honor 
     excellent attorneys was named in his honor.
       He was born in Stuart, Iowa, and received a bachelor's 
     decree in 1925 from Creighton University in Nebraska and his 
     law degree in 1927 from the University of Southern 
     California.
       He married Elinor Thon in 1931. After her death, he 
     remarried. He also outlived his second wife, Sybil.
       He is survived by a daughter JoEllen; two grandchildren; 
     and two great-grandchildren.
       Mr. Ball recalled in 1993: ``In 1965, I called Chief 
     Justice Warren on the telephone. I said, `Chief, these 
     critics of the report are guilty of misrepresentation and 
     dishonest reporting.' He replied, `Be patient; history will 
     prove that we are right.' ''

  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Kyl). The Senator from Iowa is recognized.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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