As participant, he contributed to the construction of the escape materials and the modification of the cells. His specific contributions are not fully separable from those of the other three men; the work was done collaboratively, in conditions of secrecy, and the available documentation is primarily his own account.
As witness, he was the primary source for the investigation in the immediate aftermath. His account of the preparation — the drilling, the workshop, the raft, the route plan — provided the framework that guided the investigation and established the narrative that all subsequent accounts have used. Without West’s cooperation, the investigators would have had only the physical evidence and would have needed to reconstruct the preparation from that evidence alone.
As complication, West has created problems for a clean narrative ever since. His claim to be the mastermind — rejected by most investigators and analysts — introduces a question of authorship into every account of the escape. If West is not the mastermind, what is the basis for attributing the planning primarily to Morris? The answer is partly logical (Morris had the escape history and the measured intelligence) and partly inferential (investigators found West’s self-aggrandizement implausible). Neither is conclusive.
West’s later life — conviction for a 1972 stabbing, death in 1978 from peritonitis — did not resolve his place in the narrative. He died before the investigation closed, before the letters and photographs and family testimony that have extended the story into the present. His account of the plan is frozen at June 12, 1962, supplemented by whatever interviews and statements he gave before his death in 1978.