JFK BOARD MEETS IN L.A. : PANEL TASKED WITH REVIEWING DOCUMENTS ON ASSASSINATION.

Byline: Janet Gilmore Daily News Staff Writer

Mafia plots. A Cuban connection. Government cover-ups. Theories about the assassination of John F. Kennedy have for years provided fodder for books, movies and official commissions.

More than three decades after the assassination, the theories are getting yet another hearing before the Assassination Records Review Board. The panel, established by George Bush in the aftermath of the movie ``JFK'' and appointed by Bill Clinton in 1994, met for the first time in Los Angeles on Tuesday.

The panel heard testimony from authors, experts, producers and former prosecutors in their quest to identify existing documents and new information that could shed still more light on Kennedy's assassination nearly 33 years ago.

The Warren Commission concluded in 1964 that Lee Harvey Oswald had acted alone in Dallas.

But independent investigations leading to books and movies, such as Oliver Stone's 1991 film, ``JFK,'' question the Warren Commission report and accuse the government of suppressing key documents detailing a wider conspiracy.

The board's primary mission is to review documents now held by such federal agencies as the FBI and determine if they should be released to the public. So far it has obtained the release of more than 2,500 documents.

In testimony Tuesday, film producer Eric Hamburg urged the board to look to Cuba for a ``treasure-trove that has not been tapped before.''

Hamburg, co-producer of Stone's ``Nixon'' and a former staff assistant involved in the passage of the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992, told the board of Mafia and CIA groups allegedly active in Cuba at the time of the assassination.

He spoke of ties between Oswald and such groups and offered a letter from Oswald's widow, recommending documents for the board to secure. He suggested also that the board explore the theory that Kennedy's assassination may have been linked to plans to end the Vietnam War.

Robert Tanenbaum, former deputy counsel for the House Select Committee on Assassinations during the late 1970s, encouraged the board to settle for nothing less than the complete, unaltered release of documents now held by agencies including the FBI and CIA.

``There can be no compromise,'' Tanenbaum told the board.

Tanenbaum said he resigned from the House select committee because he lost faith in the process: The former New York prosecutor spoke of the disenchantment he felt when his investigatory efforts were blocked by lying witnesses, a disinterested Congress, and others who blocked efforts to explore ties between Oswald, the CIA and anti-Castro Cuban exiles.

``I was heartbroken that this occurred in our government,'' he said.

John R. Tunheim, a U.S. district judge from Minnesota and chairman of the board, noted that the American public does not appear to believe the Warren Commission report.

But he said the role of this board, he said, is to keep an open mind about everything - even the seemingly wackiest of conspiracy theories.

When the board completes its mission in October 1997, Tunheim said, it will be up to the public to sift through the data and decide what it means.

``We're filling in the gaps and there are a lot of gaps about the assassination and the aftermath,'' he said. ``Certainly there is a lot of evidence and a lot of evidence is unexplained.''

The board has held previous hearings in Dallas, Boston, New Orleans and Washington, D.C., and is in Los Angeles to speak with those who have researched and written books on the subject.

CAPTION(S):

2 Photos

PHOTO (1) Robert Tanenbaum

(2) John R. Tunheim