The Poster Boy For Loitering And Intrigue: Conclusion

   [Original version posted on my blog on 12 May 2014]


There's a bit more to consider in the Michael Wayne saga, but this seems a good time to stop and assess some things.


1.   Regarding the audiotape listings, I've generally found that the more critical and controversial the topic of the interview, the more likely there will be notations of "low volume recording" or similar technical issues. Arguably (quite) a coincidence, or maybe due to my overly suspicious reasoning, but I think it helps to bear in mind that a good many of Robert F. Kennedy's fellow Americans held a degree of antipathy toward him (for a variety of offenses -- real, suspected, and imagined). So the issue may be less that of a grand conspiracy than of authorities and like-minded subordinates with an attitude of, "Fuck it, he's gone -- good riddance; let's go through the motions and not make this too complicated. (After all, we got the guy who was shooting a gun.)"

In the case of Steve Fontanini's interview, the notation is that he was initially identified, and then the tape recorder was turned off. Maybe a simple mistake occurred, unless there was concern about the nature of Fontanini's information. (And so it might be best not to record it and rely instead on the more flexible integrity of a reporting officer's account. And note the repetitions of "Mr. Fontanini" in the documented report of the interview -- something that someone used to writing reports is unlikely to do.) In the case of the brief custody of Michael Wayne, we find that two critical tapes are not among the listings of audiotapes: those of Charles Winner and Augustus Mallard.

In Sgt. Varney's initial report, there is a contextual suggestion that Charles Winner's interview might have had some bearing on the origin of the Gilbert business card problem. Varney first reported that issue as the rationale for re-interviewing Wayne, then reported Wayne's denials on the subject and negative results from an interview with Mallard. Then he wrote, "Mr. Wayne was brought to our attention by Mr. Charles Winner (I-239)...." Not much to go on other than the context being suggestive, but we would have to start somewhere to try to determine how the whole thing got started. In his subsequent report to Lt. Higbie, Varney put the subject of Gilbert's business card briefly at the end, amid trying to clear Wayne as a collector of political campaign souvenirs who might have inadvertently acquired the card while trading with his fellow witnesses who were likewise waiting to be interviewed by police.

Presumably, however, those other people had not been chased, tackled, and handcuffed. And obviously, the lack of any report of Augustus Mallard's direct account of the night's events is very troubling. Such considerations would take us into issues involving a cover-up. The rationalization for the infamous destruction of evidence in the case is that it was "standard procedure" to "reduce inventory" within a given time limit. Our outlook would change dramatically if we learned that there had been a targeting of certain critical items for destruction.



2. a.   The issue of Michael Wayne's veracity could seem somewhat problematic at first, with some mitigating factors. In his first report to police, he said he could identify the suspect and his gun, giving a brief description of a young male Latino, 5' 8" tall, with black curly hair. In his next statement, a taped interview at Ramparts station, he appears to have denied seeing the shooting or the suspect. But as I noted initially, this may have been a bit garbled; in subsequent interviews, Wayne gave more detail about what he did and did not see of the shooting and the suspect.

Likewise, to be fair, we do not know how much information about Gilbert's business card was initially shared with Wayne, if the police showed him their copy at that time, and so on. When first asked about it, Wayne reportedly said he didn't know Gilbert, didn't "know how the card came into his possession," didn't remember ever having it, and couldn't recall having a card from any reloading shop. In Sgt. Varney's subsequent report to Lt. Higbie, he said Wayne claimed that "he did not remember having the card, did not know Gilbert, and cannot find the card now." In these initial reports, there's no straight denial from Wayne. Instead, there is an implicit acknowledgment that such a card might have been in his possession. But if the police contact a civilian and say, "We have information that this card was found on your person while you were in custody," the person might assume the authority is in the right unless clearly knowing otherwise, and would comply with the express argument that such was the case.

However, we have other information to compare with Wayne's denials. Sgt. Varney first reported that he "received information" that Gilbert's card "was in the possession of Wayne" when Wayne was in custody. That doesn't sound much like the eventual official solution, of an officer finding a photostat of a Gilbert card (of entirely unknown provenance) in a folder and leaping to the conclusion that Wayne had that card found on him when in custody. (Because three years prior, during a search of Gilbert's residence, police found a business card that happened to bear the not uncommon name of "Michael Wayne" amidst a great many other business cards.) If that was all they were going on, we might expect to see evidence of rapid reprimands instead of an investigation that took most of a year to sew up. (Compare the speedy handling of the polka dot dress nuisance, and recall the previously-noted issue of Charles Winner's missing interview tape.)

Sgt. Varney concluded his report to his superior with what he presented as his supposition about Wayne having traded "cards and names and addresses with other witnesses, in attempts to barter for objects related to the campaign." As an explanation, that seems likely to have been Wayne's suggestion to Varney (proper procedure for which would have been to note it as such). For a reporting officer to come up with it on his own and supply it in an official report,......... would be highly unusual. (Varney got transferred to Homicide Division as Lt. Hernandez was clearing things up with the final polygraph exam of Wayne on 10 April 1969. Lt. Manuel Pena had assigned Varney to the initial Wayne/Gilbert card investigation.)


2. b.   Following a polygraph examination of Wayne, Lt. Enrique Hernandez gave his opinion in the report of 1 April 1969 that "Wayne was being truthful when he replied that he did not know Gilbert, nor had he ever given him a business card, nor had he ever had a business card bearing his own name. He could not recall how he obtained Gilbert's card, nor who had given it to him." That might seem definitive if not for the issue of Wayne's never having "had a business card bearing his own name." But that could have been technically correct: his card did not bear the name of "Michael Wayne" but that of "Michael Laurence Wien" (his actual name, allegedly). And at least arguably, it was not a "business card." (He claimed he made it in high school.)

The report on the final polygraph exam (10 April 1969) states that Wayne "could not recall meeting Keith Gilbert" and "had business cards printed five years ago, but had not used them recently. He claimed to have met another man named Michael Wayne who was a member of the Kennedy Staff (S.U.S. records reflect no such name.)" Gratuitous volunteering of exonerating supposition becomes noticeable as something of a pattern for Mr. Wayne (as with the suggestion of witnesses trading business cards after a shooting). And while on April 1st, he denied having had "a business card bearing his own name" (which was the right answer, per Lt. Hernandez), Wayne now answered Yes to the question, "Have you ever had business cards with your name printed on them?"

More importantly, Wayne answered No to the question, "Other than Wayne have you ever used a different last name?" That proved to be a lie during Wayne's interview by Sgt. Gutierrez on 29 June 1969, as he then produced the card with the name "Michael Laurence Wien" on it. Also, in this last of Wayne's many interviews, he once again volunteered information seemingly unnecessarily.
After carefully viewing Gilbert's card he denied ever seeing it or of knowing any person by that name. He did, however, admit going to a "Nazi" shop in Glendale with a friend, Robert J. Soto, late in the summer of 1968, after the Kennedy assassination. He went to this Nazi store mearly [sic] out of curiosity. Prior to that he had never been to any Nazi store or antique gun shop.

Given the date of the alleged visit, it's not clear what possible bearing Wayne thought such information could have had on the subject in question. (Unless it was some reflection of his apprehension that information about such a visit could emerge, which might raise more questions about an association with persons of Far Right persuasion, like Keith Gilbert.) In any event, I have to admit that I'm not personally familiar with what would constitute a "Nazi store" -- in Glendale or elsewhere -- but I do find it reassuring that Mr. Wien had never been to one other than just that one time ...... and was evidently willing to let bygones be bygones on the whole Nazism brouhaha, considering that he initially reported that he was Jewish.



3.   It seems there was a fairly quick obscuring of the original issue, which was mostly overlooked thereafter: the running, being chased, being handcuffed and taken into custody. To be generous, we might suppose Michael Wayne was not the only one who ran away from the scene of the shooting (though he was not in the line of fire, being several meters behind Sirhan), and that attention was drawn to him only because his rolled-up poster was mistaken for a weapon. He might well have been intent on finding a phone. But as Steve Fontanini pointed out, it seems odd that Wayne was unable to get a line on any one of many telephones in the Colonial Room (informally designated as "the press room" as it was expressly set aside to cater to the needs of news reporters in their natural habitats).

And then there's the issue of discrepancies in the accounts of Wayne's encounter with Augustus Mallard. According to Wayne, he approached Mallard to inquire about the use of a telephone. When the overly inquisitive security officer wanted to know why, Wayne told him that Senator Kennedy had been shot. Officer Mallard then followed the standard procedure of pushing Wayne around a corner and handcuffing him. Alternatively, Wayne may have thought the best way to get a phone line was to get chased, run into a mirror, and be tackled by people who might have known where some phones were.

That Wayne's version of events was accepted will not come as a big surprise to those who are familiar with this case. And all kidding aside, the initial acceptance is neither hard to fathom nor a sign of sinister implications. But at some point, it is the simple duty of investigating authorities to assess and compare pieces of information to try to determine the validity of accounts and scenarios. That we can see Wayne's version of events as ridiculous here, in a brief review based on limited available evidence, is a concern that goes beyond mere apathy or even antipathy toward Robert Kennedy. We encounter a more or less complete collective silence on the original problem. Then comes the reassurance of Lt. Hernandez's polygraph examinations, which comprehensively covered the issue by asking Wayne if he had been "running from the scene of the shooting" and if he was telling the truth about why he did that.



4.   In Sgt. Varney's initial report, the transporting of Wayne to the Rampart station does not appear, possibly because Wayne didn't mention it. Later investigation of a reported Sirhan sighting at an electrician's booth necessitated an interview with Wayne, as someone evidently thought he bore some resemblance to Sirhan. On a good day, Wayne's more detailed account in that interview might have triggered some thinking along the lines of his behavior being more like that of a stalker than a hobbyist -- gaining entry to critical areas by circuitous routes and questionable methods; being asked to leave the pantry once he got an autograph, but returning there before the end of Kennedy's speech. Maybe even testing how easy it might be to get close to Kennedy in approaching him for the autograph.

Further thought, especially about the resemblance to Sirhan, might have led to considering whether Wayne's behavior was part of a misdirection strategy -- various "sightings" of a Sirhan "double" -- to muddy the waters of any later investigation. Coupled with the variance between Wayne's account of being taken into custody compared with the accounts of others, one could expect such issues to result in a more thorough investigation, if that was what was wanted. It's not just that Michael Wien/Wayne managed to talk his way out of quite a few things (and kept going progressively downhill the more he had to say). It's that he was another "problem" for a scenario of a lone nut assassin -- one that didn't go away quickly, even after the standard procedure was followed, of Lt. Hernandez coming in to officially put an issue to rest.



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