Unwanted Facts: Facts that Most Books on the Lincoln Assassination Ignore

[AussieMick]

I suppose its a case of picking and choosing who you want to believe , and who most fits the bill to meet what you want to believe ....

"Of all the individuals who had seen the diary between the time it was taken from Booth and the time it was presented to the Judiciary Committee, Baker was the only one who believed that it had been tampered with. Conger, who appeared several weeks after Baker, testified that the diary was in the same condition that it had been when he had taken it from Booth. He remembered no conversation with Baker about the sketch of a house, although Baker had recently spoken to him about it. Conger said that he had examined the diary very carefully and believed that there was "no change" in it. Another member of the capture party, Luther B. Baker, a cousin of Lafayette Baker's, testified that the pages had been missing in 1865. So also did Secretary Stanton himself, who had examined the book for thirty or forty minutes when he first received it. Thomas T. Eckert, an assistant secretary of war who carried the diary from Stanton to Judge Advocate General Holt, had also noticed the missing pages and testified that the book was in the same condition as it had been when he received it from Stanton. Holt, who had had physical possession ever since, declared, "It is now in precisely the condition that it was when it came into my hands." Thus, according to sworn testimony before a congressional committee, either Lafayette C. Baker was guilty of perjury (or a bad memory), or Conger, Luther B. Baker, Stanton, Eckert, and Holt were. The weight of evidence, as well as of numbers, is against Baker. “

booths_diary.pdf
WILLIAM HANCHETT