This is transcript of an episode of "The Men Who Killed Kennedy" (Ed. Note: The reason this is included is not so much for the Kennedy aspect, but the testimony that United States Government Agents solicited the murder of a United States Citizen on United States soil. Note the complete normalcy with which they discuss killing US citizens on foreign soil. This situation cannot be tolerated. That citizens of the United States can be deprived of life by agents of the government without due process of law is more proof that we have the right to overthrow this false government by force.) Narrator: Lt. Colonel Dan Marvin has spent his life serving his country. A veteran of 8 combat campaigns, he earned 21 awards and decorations. Fifteen years a paratrooper, he served in the elite special forces, the Green Berets. Just a few weeks after the assassination, he volunteered for specialist guerilla training at Fort Bragg. Daniel Marvin: Almost all the instruction in the guerilla war school was classified. The most secret was the top secret training on assassinations and terrorism. At that time we went to a different building, that had a double barb wire fence around it and guard dogs. Daniel Marvin: On the John F. Kennedy situation, that was brought to our attention as a classic example of "THE WAY" to organize a complete program to eliminate a nation's leader while pointing the finger at a lone assassin. It involved also the cover up of the assassination itself. We had considerable detail. They had a mock layout of the Plaza and that area, and it showed where the shooters were, and where the routes were to the hospital. I don't remember where those were now. They had quite a bit of movie, film coverage, it seemed like thinking back to that time, and some still photos, the grassy knoll. They told us that Oswald was not involved, in the shooting and all, that he was the patsy, he the one that was was set up. We did, myself and a friend of mine, form the very distinct impression that the CIA was involved in Kennedy's assassination. During the coffee break, we overheard one of the CIA instructors say to the other, "Things really did go well at Dealy Plaza, didn't they?" or something to that effect. And that just reinforced, or really added to to our suspicions, and we really felt that before the end of the training was over that one of those instructors may have been involved himself in the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Narrator: At Fort Bragg, fifteen months after his training, Dan was summoned to meet an official from the CIA, a company man. David Vanek, a fellow officer in assassination training, also attended. Daniel Marvin: First the company man took me aside, showed me his badge, his ID card. Then he asked me if I would volunteer to kill a man, a United States Citizen, a naval officer. He didn't tell me who it was at first, and I assumed what he was talking about was killing a man overseas. He asked me at first if I would accept an assignment to kill somebody, but he didn't give me the name. But then I asked for the name, assuming that it would be, like I said, overseas. And he gave me the name, William Bruce Pitzer. Hard name to forget, really, once you hear it. And so, I told him yes, and then he said, we have to, he started to lay out the details of it, and the details included the fact that I would have to get him before he retired, and he retired in a very short period of time if I remember correctly and he was stationed at Bethesda Naval Hospital so I'd have to actually get him here in the United States. So I refused, because that wasn't the way that we were trained that this was going to happen. We were supposed to be used as their assets, the CIA's assets, for use in assassinations overseas. In the United States the Mafia was supposed to supply all resources they need for killing somebody here in the United States. Daniel Marvin: So he then asked David Vanek, he went over to David Vanek and he talked to him. Now I don't know what he talked to David Vanek about, he might have asked him the price of ice cream, I don't know. But, I never saw David Vanek after that day. That was in August, the first week of August, 1965. Narrator: In November 1963, William Bruce Pitzer was head of the Audio-Visual Unit at Bethesda Naval Hospital. A close colleague of the time was a young Petty Officer, Dennis David. Dennis David: Three or four days after the assassination, I walked into this office and I saw, he was working on some film. He had a movie editor, one of those reel to reel that runs across with a screen. And he showed it to me, and it was a 16mm film of the autopsy. There were also some slides. He had some slides, that he had, that showed tissue slides and also showed some slides of President Kennedy that were taken from while he was on the table at the morgue. And we looked at them, kinda horrified I guess you would say, at the seriousness of the wound, but I remember that one of the things that I remembered was that we saw there was a picture of Kennedy laying on the table and it was a front profile and the only thing we saw was a little hole about here in the temple (note: DD points to just beside the right eye) and in another photograph, another slide that Bill had, showed a huge gaping hole here in the back, and so Bill and I logically assumed that the wound was a frontal entry wound, as opposed to what the Warren Commission later said, being shot from behind. Narrator: Dennis left Bethesda for a new posting. But in November 1966 a colleague gave him some distressing news, regarding his old friend Bill Pitzer. He had been found dead in a pool of blood, in his studio at Bethesda. The official verdict was suicide. Lying face down on the floor, a 38 revolver by his side, he had a bullet wound in his right temple. Dennis David: When the occupational therapist had told me this, I remember, everybody said, that doesn't make a hell of a lot of sense, because Bill was left-handed. We used to kid him all the time when we would play at bridge about being a southpaw, because sometimes he would deal in reverse instead of dealing them in the correct sequence, he'd deal them in the opposite way, and we would kind of harass him about it. Narrator: There are grave doubts about Pitzer's alleged suicide. His left hand had been so mangled, as if tortured, that his wedding ring could not be removed and given to his widow. Dennis David: Bill had told me, shortly before I left Bethesda, which was around the 7th of December, of 1965, he told me that he was planning on retiring, because he had enough time in, and he was wanting to get out. And he also told me that he had some damned lucrative offers from some TV networks, and other people have asked me why I think he was assassinated, and I think it was because, that with him retiring, they, and I don't know who "they" are, were afraid he would take these pictures that he and I had seen, this 35mm and the 16mm film, that he would take them and if he went to work for a major studio that they would use them or he would have them aired, and that would really blow some people out of the water if that would have transpired. Daniel Marvin: I am absolutely certain that the name that I was given underneath those pine trees in Fort Bragg, North Carolina in the first week of August was William Bruce Pitzer. I put it completely out of my mind, from 1965 until 1993. I was watching this special, in November 1993 about the assassination of Kennedy. I think it was a special by Jack Anderson. At the end of that special, on the television, they rolled a list of 42 names of people who had met a violent death that were somehow associated with the assassination or the cover-up, or the autopsy or something. And I was sitting there in my living room, watching that, and the name William Bruce Pitzer came over the screen. Daniel Marvin: (sobs) and it made me go right back to that day in August of 1965, that was the William Bruce Pitzer that I was asked to kill, unless there's two William Bruce Pitzer's who worked at Bethesda Naval Hospital. The name of the other Green Beret that was approached by the CIA agent in August, 1965, in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, was David H. Vanek, Captain, who went through the same training as I did, same class I was in. And I have tried, ever since I saw the name William Bruce Pitzer come out on that screen (sobs, wipes eyes), I have tried to find him. And I have been totally unsuccessful. I sent letters to the special office in the retired services directorate where they take a letter that you send them with a man's name and serial number and they will forward it to him, or if he's deceased, they will send it back to you. Daniel Marvin: I got no response from them, so I finally sent another follow-up letter and demanded a response, or I threatened to go to Senator D'Amato to help me on the response. And then I did get a response, but the response I got was that David H. Vanek never existed in the United States Army. Narrator: But Dan still has published Army orders proving that Captain David H. Vanek was with him at the special warfare center (video of orders). Daniel Marvin: Recognizing just what kind of person I was, which I hopefully I am no longer, it is not an easy thing to do, it would be easier for me to just melt into the woodwork, and let my family, especially my grandchildren, think of me as kind of a friendly old giant, that helps them do things and plays with them, rather than what I have done in the past. Daniel Marvin: And I know, that when this, if it is made public, the information that I have given, will adversely affect my relations with my family. I just hope and pray (sobs) that our love survives it, and I hope and pray that it does some good for this nation (sobs). |