(The document referred to was marked Commission Exhibit No. 341, for identification.)
Mr. Lane. Exhibit 341 is a page or portion of a page of the New York Times, on Sunday, December 8, with a picture of the alleged murder weapon, secured, according to the credit line under the picture, from the United Press International, indicating clearly that that rifle is not the rifle allegedly being held by Mr. Oswald in any of the pictures so widely circulated throughout our country.
Mr. Rankin. On what do you base that last conclusion, Mr. Lane? Would you point out to the Commission the differences as you see them?
Mr. Lane. Yes; the reference of the stock. The stock has a clearly curved and bent line in this picture.
Mr. Rankin. That is in Exhibit 341?
Mr. Lane. Yes, and it is present in none of the pictures of Oswald holding the rifle; 336, for example, in Newsweek magazine shows almost a straight stock. Some of them show even an absolutely straight stock.
Exhibit 335 from the New York Times shows a perfectly straight stock—which is not only a stock unlike this particular Italian 6.5 millimeter carbine, but is a stock I believe unlike any rifle stock produced during the 20th century, and possibly the 19th century, anywhere. Rifle experts seem to agree that every stock must have in it some break, so that it is possible to place your hand around the rifle while your finger holds the trigger. And there is no break in the doctored photographs, in the stock portrayed on the doctored photographs.
I have checked many rifle catalogs. This is not my field, and I don't qualify as an expert. But I have checked many rifle catalogs, and have only seen rifles with a break where the stock becomes narrow enough for one's hand to grasp it while pulling the trigger.
Mr. Rankin. Is that the basis of your opinion that you have just given, that it doesn't have a break in it, and that other rifles for any period later than you have described do?
Mr. Lane. Well, several persons who have described themselves as rifle experts have made that statement to me.