Reclaiming History

by Vincent Bugliosi

  Another example: After the Commission established through its questioning of Dallas Secret Service chief Forrest Sorrels that it wouldn’t have been feasible to get to Stemmons Freeway from Main Street,83 Rankin wrote to Hoover on August 10, 1964, saying the Commission needed photographs to demonstrate that “traffic proceeding westbound on Main Street is directed to turn right on Houston Street and left onto Elm Street if it wishes to proceed north on the Stemmons Freeway. We would like to demonstrate, in short, that the motorcade was not able to proceed on Main Street and gain access to the Stemmons Freeway proceeding northbound without departing from normal traffic patterns.” Rankin asked for six photographs depicting six separate points, including one that showed “instructions which are posted on Main Street instructing westbound traffic as to how it should proceed to gain access to Stemmons Freeway,” and a photograph showing that “the barricade separating Main Street traffic from Elm Street traffic extends beyond the point where Elm Street traffic can gain access to Stemmons Freeway.”84*

  Moreover, the Commission relied on many other federal agencies besides the FBI for information about the assassination. For instance, the Secret Service launched an extensive investigation, conducting 1,552 interviews and submitting eight hundred reports totaling some forty-six hundred pages. When HSCA member Christopher J. Dodd, in his questioning of former Warren Commission assistant counsel Burt Griffin, stated that the Commission and its staff seemed to be limited to merely “evaluating the evidence that they [FBI] are handing you,” Griffin responded this was not so. “We did have other agencies,” he said. “We had a countercheck on them [the FBI]. We were getting to a certain extent parallel investigations from the Secret Service. We were also getting information back from the Dallas Police Department. A lot of people who were being interrogated by the FBI were being interrogated by other agencies, even the Post Office Department.” He went on to say that “in terms of the scientific information,” in addition to the FBI the Warren Commission “deliberately went to find people independent of the federal government.”85 Indeed, Warren Commission assistant counsel W. David Slawson said, “We had special people…who were investigators…assigned from the CIA, FBI, and Secret Service who were with us more or less full-time, especially the Secret Service.”86 Other agencies that participated in the investigation in a meaningful way were the Department of State, IRS, the military intelligence agencies, and the Dallas Police and Sheriff’s Departments. The Commission “directed requests to the 10 major departments of the Federal Government, 14 of its independent agencies or commissions, and 4 congressional committees for all information relating to the assassination or the background and activities of Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby.”87 And the Commission staff critically reviewed in detail the actions and investigative efforts of all these agencies, even calling the heads of the main agencies (i.e., J. Edgar Hoover, director of the FBI; John A. McCone, director of the CIA; and James J. Rowley, chief of the Secret Service) to testify under oath about the conduct of their respective agencies in the investigation.88

  But above all, it was the testimony and depositions taken by the Warren Commission and its staff that give the lie to the myth that the Commission was totally dependent on the FBI. Considering that in a state or federal criminal prosecution, as opposed to a civil case, depositions by the prosecution (as well as the defense) are not allowed, the Warren Commission conducted an investigation of Kennedy’s murder far, far more independent of the FBI or local and state law enforcement than any other previous or subsequent case in American legal history.

  My foregoing reference to the Warren Commission’s independent investigative efforts is not meant to depreciate the FBI’s contribution to the assassination investigation. In fact, there’s no question that the FBI was the main investigative arm of the Warren Commission out in the field and obviously conducted the bulk of that field investigation. A total of 169 FBI agents worked on the assassination, resulting in approximately twenty-five thousand interviews, and over twenty-three hundred reports approximately 25,400 pages.89

  But even if the Warren Commission had not conducted an independent investigation of the assassination, and had relied on the FBI as the only investigative agency (as some critics claim), and even if the Warren Commission had not sought corroboration for information given to it by the FBI, and had relied solely on the FBI, how bad would that be? Since the FBI was the largest and arguably the best investigative agency in the world, whom would the Warren Commission be expected to rely on? The Cincinnati Police Department? Some foreign law enforcement agency, like Scotland Yard? Since when is it a negative in a federal investigation to rely exclusively on the FBI, which all U.S. attorneys in the country routinely do in federal prosecutions? Since when does an FBI investigation of a crime have to have some other agency corroborating or investigating the FBI’s investigation? And if so, who is supposed to investigate this other agency’s investigation? As Plato observed, “That a guardian should require another guardian to take care of him is ridiculous.”

  Ah, but the Warren Commission critics say, the reason the Warren Commission shouldn’t have relied on the FBI in this case is that FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover was certainly not someone to be trusted, and they proceed to cite references that suggest that Hoover did not want the Warren Commission to conduct an exhaustive investigation for fear it might uncover malfeasance on the bureau’s part. But although the HSCA faulted the FBI’s investigation here and there—such as its purported failure to make use of the Cuban section of its Domestic Intelligence Division, and its investigation of organized crime*—the committee nonetheless was forced to admit that the FBI “generally exhausted its resources in confirming the case against Lee Harvey Oswald as the lone assassin…Indeed, [the FBI investigation] was an effort of unparalleled magnitude in keeping with the gravity of the crime, and resulting in the assignment of more Bureau resources than for any criminal case in its history. In terms of hours worked, interviews conducted, and tests performed, the FBI’s [investigation] was, in fact, unexcelled.”90 In a September 19, 1964, memo to the file by Hoover, five days before the Warren Report was issued, he wrote, “We left no stone unturned.” By that he obviously meant the bureau’s exhaustive pursuit of every tip and lead, no matter from whom, including a mentally unstable woman in Cuba, a drunken Aztec Indian, and a Bavarian cabdriver.91

  Earlier, the Church Committee reached the same conclusion on the extent of the FBI effort, saying, “The FBI investigation of the assassination was a massive effort. Literally thousands of leads were followed in the field by hundreds of agents, many of whom worked around the clock during the days immediately following the assassination.92 Even inveterate conspiracy theorist Harrison Edward Livingstone acknowledges that “the FBI…performed a massive job of trying to track down many leads.”93*

  According to the HSCA, the bureau made this tremendous effort despite the fact that Hoover “seemed determined to make [the case against Oswald as the lone assassin] within 24 hours of the assassination.”94 The HSCA was referring to a five-page letter Hoover sent to President Johnson on November 23, 1963, in which he apprised Johnson of what his agency had learned about the assassination up to that point. But although Hoover naturally set forth the evidence tying Oswald to the assassination (I mean, what else could he do—the murder weapon, for instance, was sent to Oswald’s post office box, not Bob Hope’s), there is no way that one can infer from the letter that Hoover “seemed determined” to nail Oswald. Nowhere does he offer an opinion on Oswald’s guilt, and there isn’t even any vague allusion to the absence of a conspiracy.95

  However, on November 25, two days later, Hoover did issue a statement to the media that the available evidence indicated Oswald killed Kennedy and “not one shred of evidence” connecting anyone else to the assassination had yet been found by his agents.96 Though Hoover unprofessionally acted with too much haste in suggesting that Oswald was the lone assassin, he obviously was basing this on information he was receiving from his inve
stigative staff. Moreover, he was simply reporting a fact—that up to that point in time, Oswald appeared to be the assassin and there was no evidence he acted in concert with others.

  The proof that the FBI had not closed its mind to any subsequent evidence that might have pointed toward a conspiracy is an internal November 27, 1963, memorandum from Assistant FBI Director Alan Belmont, the number-three man at the bureau who headed up its investigation of the assassination, to Associate FBI Director Clyde Tolson, the number-two man, in which Belmont said that although a preliminary FBI report on the assassination would be available on November 29, “The investigation…will, however, continue, because we are receiving literally hundreds of allegations regarding the activities of Oswald and Ruby, and these, of course, are being run out as received…We must check out and continue to investigate…any allegation or possibility that he [Oswald] was associated with others in this assassination. Likewise, we have to continue to [try to] prove the possibility that Jack Ruby was associated with someone else in connection with his killing Oswald.”

  But let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that Hoover could not be trusted in the Kennedy assassination case and investigation, and tried to emasculate the Warren Commission by convincing everyone early on that Oswald, despite his innocence, killed Kennedy and acted alone, and hence there was no need for a thorough investigation by the Warren Commission. That argument, like virtually all conspiracy arguments, “doesn’t go anywhere” since we know Hoover did not succeed. As indicated, the HSCA concluded that the Warren Commission and FBI did, in fact, conduct a massive investigation. Warren Commission assistant counsel Norman Redlich, a self-proclaimed civil libertarian who was a professor of constitutional law at the time of his appointment to the Warren Commission staff, says that he “did not come to Washington with the view that the Federal Bureau of Investigation was a model that I should choose to follow.” But he said that “notwithstanding my predisposition” against them, “I left Washington…with a feeling of respect for the FBI,” finding it to be “a very cooperative agency…There is nothing that we asked them to do that they didn’t do and do promptly.” Perhaps most importantly, he found “they were fair, cautious, and did not try to overstate their case. They were not trying to convict Lee Harvey Oswald…They were a very professional organization.”97

  Finally, some conspiracy theorists have made the argument that Hoover couldn’t be trusted and was out to sabotage the investigation because he was behind the assassination and was out to cover up his complicity. But no serious and responsible conspiracy theorist believes this. Only those on the far-out fringes do. So where does the argument that Hoover cannot be trusted go? Nowhere. With conspiracy theorists, however, none of their arguments have to “go anywhere.” The argument (based on a contradiction, anomaly, rumor, etc.) is the end in itself.

  The bottom line is that even if the Warren Commission did rely exclusively on the FBI for its investigation (which clearly wasn’t the case), it would only compromise the Commission’s conclusions if the FBI itself was involved in Kennedy’s murder or in trying to cover up for those who did. In other words, when the critics say the Warren Commission was crippled by the reliance on the FBI as its chief investigative arm, they are for the most part presupposing that the FBI was involved in Kennedy’s murder or cover up. But as you’ll see later in this book, there is not a scintilla of evidence to support that proposition.

  Resuming the chronology, on December 20, four days after the Warren Commission established an investigative direction, the individual reports filed by FBI agents in the field, upon which the bureau had based its summary report to the Commission, began arriving at the Commission’s headquarters. That same day, Howard P. Willens, a thirty-two-year-old graduate of Yale Law School and high-ranking Justice Department lawyer in the Criminal Division, joined the staff at the request of Deputy Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach, who wanted Willens to serve as liaison between the Commission and the Justice Department. Willens got the impression that it was going to be a part-time job, but when confronted with the amount of work piling up, he went back to his Justice Department office, packed up his belongings, and moved into the Commission offices, which occupied two floors of the new Veterans of Foreign Wars Building at 200 Maryland Avenue, N.E., located diagonally across the street from the Supreme Court and only a short distance from the Capitol. He was to become a key player as Rankin’s executive officer, organizing and scheduling the staff’s work and getting assistance from other agencies. Young, energetic, and occasionally abrasive, he was often thought to be too aggressive, although some finally deemed him to be the “hero of the investigation.”98

  The troika at the top was filled out by Norman Redlich, a thirty-eight-year-old professor at New York University School of Law who had been the executive editor of the Yale Law Journal, whom Rankin selected as his special assistant. A perfectionist who sometimes stepped on toes, Redlich was also gifted with prodigious energy. It was said that he could work from eight in the morning until three the next morning, seven days a week. The three men—Rankin, Willens, and Redlich—were indispensable to the Commission’s work, each influencing, in his own way, the outcome of the investigation.99

  In late December, Rankin announced the names of his “senior assistant counsels,” men from all parts of the country who were held in high esteem by their regional bar associations and whose reputations would add weight to the final report. These men of stature consisted of the aforementioned Francis W. H. Adams, the former New York City police commissioner who was a partner in a Manhattan law firm and recommended by New York City mayor Robert Wagner; Joseph A. Ball, a close friend of Warren’s (who recruited him) from California and the most experienced trial lawyer on the staff, who was a member of the U.S. Judiciary Conference Advisory Committee and past president of the California State Bar; Albert E. Jenner Jr., the former assistant attorney general for Illinois and vice chairman of the National Joint Committee for the Effective Administration of Justice; William T. Coleman Jr., a former special counsel for the city of Philadelphia and a consultant with the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, and the only black attorney on the Commission staff; and Leon D. Hubert Jr., a former U.S. attorney and Tulane University professor from New Orleans who was recommended to the staff by U.S. Representative Hale Boggs, a member of the Commission.100

  While lawyers of such prominence lent credibility to the Commission’s eventual report, none of them were able to give up months of their lucrative practices in order to participate in the hard, day-to-day labor of the investigation, and it was understood that although they would supervise their particular area of the investigation, they would only be spending about one full day a week on the job, more at their discretion. Of the five senior assistant counsels, Adams was the least involved, Ball the most. The real work, not surprisingly, was done by the “junior assistant counsels,” young lawyers who had been at or near the top of their law school class but who were not “government men.” Within days of the formation of the Commission, resumés began flooding the Commission headquarters on Maryland Avenue. But, as it turned out, nearly all the lawyers who were picked for the Commission staff were not those who applied. “They were chosen because they were bright, credentialed, and were in the right place at the right time. And they were known by the right people.”101

  The staff lawyers were told that their work should last three months but that it could go on, depending on developments, for six months. Some junior counsels later testified that there was some grumbling about the amount of work being done and who was shouldering the vast majority of it as the investigation wore on. W. David Slawson stated, “I felt overworked and I think many of the staff members felt the same way. I think one of the main problems was the great underestimation of the size of the task at the time…It is my recollection they said it would only be three to six months on the outside and of course we ended up taking about eight.”102 Most of the junior counsels were recruited by Howard Willens, who w
anted men who could work sixteen hours a day. They were paid only seventy-five dollars a day, but for many of them it was as much or more than they were making in private practice so early in their careers.103

  Twenty-nine-year-old Melvin A. Eisenberg, a New York corporation lawyer who had topped his class at Harvard and edited the Harvard Law Review, became Redlich’s assistant. Also added to the team were Arlen Specter, the former assistant district attorney of Philadelphia with whom Willens had coedited the Yale Law Journal; Samuel A. Stern, a developmental editor of Harvard Law Review and former law clerk to Chief Justice Warren; Burt W. Griffin, a note and comment editor of the Yale Law Journal and the former assistant U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Ohio; David W. Belin, an associate editor of the Michigan Law Review and an Iowa trial lawyer; W. David Slawson, a note editor of the Harvard Law Review and Denver attorney; and Wesley J. Liebeler, a former Wall Street lawyer and managing editor of the University of Chicago Law Review who was recommended to Willens by the dean of the University of Chicago Law School.104