27. Fetzer, Wood, Murder in Dealey Plaza Part I: 22 November, 1963: A Chronology, p. 32.
28. Also see Zirbel, p. 254.
29. Prouty, p. 31.
30. Fetzer, (Weldon) Murder . . . p. 152.
31. WC Hearings, Vol II, pp. 42–43.
32. The Education Forum (Ref. Malcolm Wallace, Part 1).
33. Trask, Pictures… pp. 64–65.
34. Ibid. p. 312
35. Caro, The Path, p. 156.
36. Groden, The Killing of a President, p. 15.
37. Prouty, Op. cit.
38. Time magazine, November 29, 1963.
39. Trask, p. 75.
40. Marrs, p. 356.
41. Twyman, p. 793.
* The distinction was made regarding the year 1963, because at that time, police chiefs, like their fellow citizens, had much greater respect for the institution of the presidency, regardless of its current incumbent, than is generally true today; therefore, the context of why a police chief would knowingly accept a dubious request from a politician should be considered.
42. Ibid.
43. Sloan and Hill, JFK: The Last Dissenting Witness. pp. 120–121.
44. North, pp. 395–397.
45. Sloan and Hill, JFK: The Last Dissenting Witness. pp. 120–121.
46. Jones, vol. III, p. 101.
47. Groden, p. 245.
48. Douglass, pp. 272–273 (Ref. Ratcliffe, David T., Understanding Special Operations, p. 206).
49. Ibid., p. 273, Twyman, pp. 762–769.
50. Bolden, pp. 54–55.
51. Twyman, p. 763.
52. WCH Vol. 19, p. 524.
53. Horne, 1114.
54. Ibid.
55. Douglass, p. 451 (note 309).
56. Ibid. p. 275.
57. Ibid.
58. Ibid.
59. Warren Commission Hearings, Vol. VI, pp. 245–46.
60. Ibid.
61. Thompson, p. 122.
62. Ibid.
63. Douglass, p. 275.
64. Ibid. p. 276 (Ref. Michael L. Kurtz, Crime of the Century: The Kennedy Assassination from a Historian’s Perspective, Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1993; p. 132).
65. Ibid. (Kurtz, p. 189).
66. Ibid. (Kurtz, p. 189).
67. Ibid.
68. Sloan and Hill, JFK: The Last Dissenting Witness, pp. 20–23.
69. Ibid.
70. Ibid., p. 24.
71. Sloan and Hill, JFK: The Last Dissenting Witness. pp. 25–29.
72. See Youtube.com: Jean Hill: JFK Assassination Eyewitness (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6966129980059644433).
73. Ibid. (19 min. 50 sec. to 20 min. 30 sec.).
74. Ibid. (at 50 minutes).
75. Marrs, p. 67.
76. Sloan and Hill, JFK: The Last Dissenting Witness, p. 66–67.
77. Sloan and Hill, JFK: The Last Dissenting Witness, General Theme.
78. Sloan and Hill, JFK: The Last Dissenting Witness, p. 150.
79. Marrs, pp. 483–484.
80. Ibid.
81. Sloan and Hill, JFK: The Last Dissenting Witness, pp. 112–14.
82. Ibid.
83. Bishop, p. 94.
84. Hancock, p. 289.
85. Hancock, p. 404 (ref. Twyman, Bloody Treason: On Solving History’s Greatest Murder Mystery, pp. 793–795.
86. Fetzer, Murder in Dealey Plaza, Part I: 22 November, 1963: A Chronology, Wood III, Ira David, p. 41.
87. Sloan and Hill, JFK: The Last Dissenting Witness, pp. 112–14.
88. Marrs, p. 340.
89. Ibid.
90. Summers, Anthony, Not in Your Lifetime, Warner Books, 1998, p. 68.
91. Ibid.
92. Garrison, p. 228.
93. Ibid., p. 229.
94. Ibid., p. 230.
95. Ibid., pp. 230–231.
96. Ibid., pp. 233–234.
97. Twyman, p. 538.
98. Ibid., p. 539.
99. Ibid.
100. Ibid. p. 539.
101. Newman, JFK and Vietnam. p. 91.
102. Russo, p. 74.
103. Who is Jim DiEugenio? by Gus Russo. John F. Kennedy Assassination News, Commentary, & Opinion. http://jfkfiles.blogspot.com/2008/09/who-is-jim-dieugenio.html
104. U.S. Senate Committee on rules and Administration. Construction of the District of Columbia Stadium and Matters Related Thereto. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1965, pt. 12, p. 1101.
105. Russo, p. 285.
106. Ibid. p. 562 (e/n 36).
107. U.S. Senate Committee on rules and Administration. Construction of the District of Columbia Stadium and Matters Related Thereto. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1965, pt. 12, p. 1101.
108. Marrs, pp. 309–311.
109. Law, p. 144.
110. Letter from Victor Krulak to Fletcher Prouty dated March 15, 1985 (http://www.ratical.com/ratville/JFK/USO/appD.html)
* See Fetzer, James H., “Dealey Plaza Revisited: What Happened to JFK” p. 368 (or Google “Familiar Faces in Dealey Plaza”, for several websites which detail the presence of numerous CIA operatives; one such is at http://bottleofbits.info/econ/faces/familiar_faces.htm)
111. For a lengthier background of Lansdale, see: http://www.historynet.com/ed-lansdales-black-warfare-in-1950s-vietnam.htm
112. Author’s Jan. 2011 correspondence with James H. Fetzer.
113. Memorandum from Doug Horne to Jeremy Gunn dated October 17, 1995 describing the audio tapes, captioned “Air Force One Audiotapes from November 22,1963.” http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/staff_memos/pdf/DH_AirForceOne.pdf
* Editorial notes: (1) The fact that Jacqueline Kennedy never used the ramp at the right front of the aircraft has caused at least one researcher to question the real motivation for its placement; (2) An Air Force document titled: “Historical Highlights of Andrews Air Force Base, 1942–1989” states that “the body of the slain President was removed to Walter Reed General Hospital,” which further fuels the controversy over the movements of the president’s body after Air Force One landed at Andrews.
114. Horne, p. 1101.
115. Manchester, p. 320.
* In the days before computers, to avoid retyping an entire report (or, to “revise” one done by someone else) it was customary to use a quick drying white substance called “White-Out” to “correct” the copy.
116. Lifton, p. 679.
117. Lifton, p. 638.
118. Ibid., p. 642.
119. Lifton, p. 690.
120. Ibid.
121. Manchester, p. 239.
* Bird was in charge of the unit, which was from Company E, First Battalion, 3rd Infantry, Fort Meyer, Virginia.
122. Lifton, pp. 601–607; Twyman, pp. 171–172.
123. Twyman, p. 173.
124. Lifton, pp. 389–422.
125. Ibid., p. 626.
126. Ibid., p. 416.
127. Russell, On the Trail …, p. 281.
128. Law, p. 111.
129. Ibid., pp. 122–123.
130. Ibid.
131. Lifton, pp. 607–08, 631.
132. Russell, On the Trail …, p. 282.
133. Ibid., p. 283.
134. Lifton., p. 683.
135. Ibid., p. 681.
136. Ibid., pp. 638–639.
137. Ibid., p. 639.
138. Ibid., pp. 636–637.
139. Ibid.
140. Ibid., 637–638.
141. Law, William, In the Eye of History, p. 35.
142. Russell, p. 571.
143. Law, p. 35.
144. Lifton, p. 610.
145. Ibid., pp. 611–612.
146. Douglass, pp. 312–313 (Ref. “Testimony of Dr. Pierre Finck,” February 24, 1969, in the trial of Clay Shaw; Appendix A in James DiEugenio, Destiny Betrayed: JFK, Cuba, and the Garrison Case. New York: Sheridan Square Press, p. 291).
147. Law, p. 45.
148. Douglass, pp. 312–313 (also, refer to p. 465, no
te 576).
149. Russell, On the Trail …, pp. 285–286.
150. Ibid., p. 285- 286; Horne, pp. 998–1000
151. Ibid., pp. 291–292.
152. Ibid.
153. Tyman, pp. 223–241.
PART V
Postassassination Intrigue
Chapter 9
THE COVER-UP CONTINUES
In a loud, hysterical voice he said, “John, that son of a bitch is going to ruin me.
If that cocksucker talks, I’m gonna land in jail… . I practically raised that motherfucker, and now he’s gonna make me the first President of the United States to spend the last days of his life behind bars.” He was hysterical …“We’re all gonna rot in jail. Tell Nat to tell Bobby that I will give him a million dollars if he takes this rap … Bobby must not talk. I’ll see to it that he gets a million-dollar settlement.”
—LYNDON JOHNSON TO SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE JOHN McCORMACK PLEADING WITH HIM TO INTERVENE WITH BOBBY BAKER—FEBRUARY 4, 1964, IN McCORMACK’S OFFICE
Lyndon Johnson Destroys the Evidence
By 8:00 a.m. Saturday morning, Evelyn Lincoln was in the West Wing packing up her things. The head of the Secret Service White House Detail, Jerry Behn—who was not the most well-liked Secret Service man on the roster—had come into the office. Mrs. Lincoln greeted him, with a not-so-well-disguised, condescending, and bitter, “Jerry, there’s something new” remark, which he did not acknowledge.1 Around eight thirty, the new president, Lyndon B. Johnson, unexpectedly appeared; he asked her to come into the Oval Office and then used his standard “I need you more than you need me” statement, only this time he followed it with a request to have his own staff begin moving into the offices within the hour, saying that he had an appointment at 9:30 a.m.2 Robert Kennedy arrived shortly after this encounter and, seeing Johnson coming toward the Oval Office, “spread his arms at the doorway and shrieked to the new President that he could not enter. ‘Don’t come in here! … You should not be here! You don’t deserve to be here.”3 Bobby later confirmed that a confrontation took place and that he was merely trying to keep Johnson away while his brother’s belongings were being packed and removed from the office, which is what he clearly explained to Johnson.4 Bobby had to explain to Johnson that it would take a little time to crate up the considerable personal property that JFK had left behind before turning over the office to him. He asked Johnson, “Can you wait?” Johnson allowed that he could wait a little while then stated that he personally did not want to occupy the White House already, but that “his advisers were insisting upon it.”5 (This assertion, though an obvious lie, ironically reveals more of the real truth of what was going on at that moment, considering everything said before about Johnson’s “whoppers.”) Almost as soon as JFK’s portrait was removed from behind Evelyn’s desk, a huge gold-framed portrait of Lyndon Johnson was siftly hung.6
After leaving the West Wing, Johnson went to McGeorge Bundy’s office around 9:00 a.m., and according to both Manchester’s book and Johnson’s diary, he met with DCI McCone for a short briefing. It was so short that it was almost nonexistent, according to McCone’s aide Russell Jack Smith, who had accompanied McCone to the White House and found the new president in the basement secretarial area outside Bundy’s office. Larry Hancock quotes Mr. Smith: “Johnson stood among the typing and ringing telephones to talk briefly with McCone and Smith and ‘had no interest whatever in being briefed.’ After some inconsequential chatting, he turned back into Bundy’s office. This narrative only underscores Johnson’s apparent lack of any real concern about any national security implications of the assassination.”7
Within twelve hours of the assassination, Johnson and his aide Cliff Carter had succeeded in having all pertinent evidence at the crime scene seized and sent to Washington. Starting with the illegal transfer of Kennedy’s body—essential to the plan so it could be modified to fit the “official scenario”—the other evidence moved to Washington included Kennedy’s clothing, the bloodstained limousine, the murder weapon and the “magic bullet,” and all other ballistics evidence. Since the hole in the front windshield of the limousine did not conform to the official version of events being propagated, it was replaced initially with a piece of glass which—unlike the windshield that had been seen by a number of witnesses who saw a hole completely through the glass8—only showed cracks emanating from a small nick. Three days later, the limousine was secretly shipped to Detroit to be cleaned and repaired, and a few weeks later it was sent to Cincinnati to be completely rebuilt. In his article “A Study of the Presidential Limousine,” Doug Weldon cites Gary Shaw, who stated in his book Cover-Up that “within 48 hours of the shots in Dealey Plaza the Kennedy death car was shipped to the Ford Motor Company in Detroit and completely destroyed as far as evidence was concerned.”9 Only two men in the country had the authority to make these decisions to destroy the crime scene: One was James J. Rowley, head of the Secret Service; clearly, though, a prudent man, one with a modicum of concern for his career, would not have been willing to make such a decision to tamper with evidence involving the “crime of the century.” The only other man was his new boss, who was also the new president, President Lyndon B. Johnson. The man given the responsibility for doing the glass replacement work on November 25, 1963 George Whitacre Sr., finally, near the end of his life, gave in to requests to reveal the secret he had held for thirty years; he can be seen on video with Doug Weldon, a JFK researcher.10
Several weeks after the car was repaired, it was decided that merely fixing the damage was not enough; the car was taken to Cincinnati where it was completely renovated and bulletproofed; it was as though budgetary constraints prevented the purchase of a replacement, making it necessary to rebuild JFK’s car according to new specifications because only it would do as the presidential limousine. The car was completely rebuilt, including “a souped-up motor, two and a half tons of new steel plating, three-inch glass, and bulletproof tires, but Johnson rarely used it.”11 In fact, a new limousine was built and delivered a few years later to Johnson. JFK’s limousine continued to be used through the presidencies of Nixon, Ford, and finally the Jimmy Carter administration. This completely rebuilt incarnation of the limousine is now on display at the Ford Motor Company’s headquarters museum in Detroit.
Hoover Throttles the FBI Investigators
Four minutes after the assassination, J. Edgar Hoover received word that Kennedy was “perhaps fatally wounded,” and he shortly called Robert Kennedy on their direct line—that had not been used in months—and advised him that the president had been shot. Twenty minutes later, Hoover phoned again to deliver the final blow. “The president’s dead,” he said and promptly hung up. Kennedy would remember, his voice was oddly flat—“not quite as excited as if he were reporting the fact that he had found a Communist on the faculty of Howard University.”12 Later that day, according to ex-FBI agent William W. Turner, “when Robert [Kennedy] arrived at his office, he picked up the hot line phone. Hoover was in his office with several aides when it rang … and rang … and rang. When it stopped ringing, the Director snapped to an aide, ‘Now get that phone [which RFK had installed so he could talk to him instantly] back on Miss Gandy’s desk.’”13 The day after JFK’s assassination, the FBI stopped sending any reports or other information to the Organized Crime Section of the Justice Department.14
Except for his call to RFK and James Rowley, head of the Secret Service, Hoover called only one other man that afternoon: Billy Byars, Texas oil millionaire and member of the “Del Charro Set” who joined Hoover once a year for a gambling and party holiday in La Jolla, California. Byars’s gambling partners included Clint Murchison Sr., H. L. Hunt, and Sid Richardson, all of whom had been frequent guests at Benny Binion’s “Legendary Top of the Hill Terrace” in the 1950s.15 Richardson, Murchison, and Hoover were only an arm’s length away from Jack Ruby, through their mutual friend Joe Campisi, who eventually replaced Joseph Civello as the Mafia leader of Dallas; both Campisi and Civello were Carl
os Marcello’s deputies in Dallas and the heads of Dallas’s relatively small Mafia family. As noted by author John H. Davis, this was “a reality that J. Edgar Hoover tried to keep from the attention of the Warren Commission and which the commission itself suppressed by not mentioning it in its report or published exhibits.”16 The way Hoover kept his association with Mob leaders and the oil millionaires secret was by having a special detail of FBI agents accompany him to ensure that mobsters would not come up to him in public at the racetrack.17 He evidently found that to be easier than simply avoiding them in the first place. Hoover would later say to Byars’s son, “If I told you what I really know [about the assassination], it would be very dangerous to the country. Our whole political system could be disrupted.”18 It is one of the least noticed points—and most remarkable ironies—of this story that this was probably the only issue on which J. Edgar Hoover and Robert F. Kennedy ever agreed. According to author David Talbot, Bobby once said “If the American people knew the truth about Dallas, there’d be blood in the streets.”19
Shutting Down the Mexico-Cuba Option
In his landmark book Plausible Denial, author Mark Lane succinctly described the brilliance of Harvey’s plan, which provided for a quick way of connecting Oswald to the assassination—and the dual purpose potential to be the catylst for a Cuba invasion in the event a “conspiracy” could not be denied—but which could be efficiently jettisoned as a “lead” by the FBI when it had served its usefulness:
In September 1963, the CIA, having planned to assassinate President Kennedy, established a false trail, a charade that would inexorably lead to Lee Harvey Oswald after the murder in Dallas. The plan was brilliantly conceived. Not only would it implicate an innocent man in the crime and thus spare the CIA from responsibility, but it would focus attention upon Oswald, a man with connections to the FBI. The FBI connection would freeze J. Edgar Hoover into inaction because of fear that his bureau might be terminally embarrassed.20
On December 12, Hoover pressured the Mexico City LEGAT to shut down its continuing investigation and on December 18 directed the New Orleans field office to shut down the investigation of David Ferrie and his connections to Oswald, Bannister, Shaw, and Carlos Marcello. All of this explains why the Warren Commission’s report about Oswald’s activities in New Orleans was superficial and abruptly ended before his connections to Ferrie, Shaw, and Bannister were traced. Specific other actions would quickly follow, including the removal of all documents relating to Oswald’s journeys to Mexico21 from his file and the shutdown of any further investigations into his Mexican activities. As reported by Thomas Mann, a career diplomat in the State Department, “The message I received from Hoover, very soon after the assassination, was, ‘We don’t want to hear any more about this case. And tell the Mexican government not to do any more investigating; we just want to hush it up.’”22 Ambassador Mann had apparently been coached by his superiors to deny the existence of any evidence pointing to a conspiracy because of the fear of war with Cuba and the Soviet Union. Lawrence Keenan, the FBI agent Hoover sent to Mexico City to discredit the Gilberto Alvarado, claim that he had seen Oswald accepting money from someone at the Cuban Embassy, said that “The most vivid memory I have is that of Ambassador [Thomas] Mann telling me ‘The missiles are going to fly.’”23
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