66
JACK LUDWIG
object was on the table, a gun, a rifle. Five minutes went by, ten,
fifteen. The crowd squirmed, clapped a quick, good-natured, em–
barrassed rhythm of get-on-with-it, and subsided.
At 8: 55 I confess I had a thought about Mann's Cipolla. People
looked into each other's faces, shrugged, smiled, shook their heads in
puzzlement.
At 9: 00 Mark Lane came out. The applause was full and gener–
ous. He stood there, unsmiling (he smiled once all night, only after a
few near-misses ), a Columbia graduate student in dark-rimmed glasses,
dark suit, dark tie, looking something like Arthur Miller's younger even
sadder brother. He began to talk in a slow, dry, not lively voice, his
style a curious compound of John F. Kennedy making a point to a
cued-in group, and Mort Sabl having one of his bad, serious, high horse
nights.
He began quietly. People said Mark Lane believed there had been
a conspiracy; Mark Lane had never said there was a c.onspiracy. He
wanted everybody to be clear about that. As far as he was concerned
there was no proof that there had been a conspiracy. Rather than
suggest there was a conspiracy he was addressing himself to something
else again. The Warren Commission report was a prosecuting at–
torney's brief; he, Mark Lane, was Lee Harvey Oswald's defense at–
torney. He would show how material unchallenged and accepted in
the Warren Commission report would be thrown out on the objection
of a defense counsel, or rejected by any jury to whom the defense
counsel addressed his arguments-Lane's arguments.
No, there was no c.onspiracy, and yet people maligned Mark
Lane, misquoted or ignored him, refused him audience, badgered
him, tailed him, tapped his wires-why, if there was nothing to hide?
Why should anyone want to bother with Mark Lane and this simple
thing he was dedicated to-unearthing the truth, the whole truth, re–
gardless of whom it touched, about the assassination of President John
F. Kennedy? Did people know Mark Lane was not only on the F.B.I.'s
but also on the Immigration Department's
lists?
"It's getting so bad that if I want the F.B.I.
to
know somethirig I
don't have t.O phone them- I can phone anybody."
The crowd applauded. A girl on the ledge whispered, "He's so
wonderful, so brave, and so
subtle."
Lane's villains he sketched in quickly- the media (by which he
meant newspapers, magazines, television and radio) were at the top
of the list, a fact of some peculiar interest at a time when the Gold–
water faction and
National R eview
were especially active working over
